How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage Accurately

Everyone wants to have a healthy and ideal body. Therefore, you need to know your body fat. It is more important than Body Mass Index (BMI). Body fat percentage cannot be seen from the look only because you need to calculate it to get the accurate result. That is why in this article we will discuss about how to calculate body fat percentage. So, if you want more detailed about it, let’s pay attention to the following discussion below.

What Is Body Fat Percentage?

Before knowing how to measure body fat percentage, it will be better to know what it is first. Body fat means the amount of fat in the body that is compared to anything else, including muscles, bones, water, organs, and others. So, men and women may have different body fat. To have a healthy and ideal body, you must have normal body fat.

Body Fat Percentage

Body Fat Classifications for Men and Women

It is very important to know how to calculate body fat percentage, but you have to know the classifications first. It is divided into5 types:

1. Essential Fat

People are considered to have essential fat if they have about 10 up to 20 percents of fat for women and 2 up to 4 percent of fat for men.

2. Athletes

You belong to athletes if the body fat percentage is from 14 up to 20 percent for women and 6 up to 13 percent for men.

3. Fitness

The next classification is fitness where a woman has 21 up to 24 percent of body fat or a man has 14 up to 17 percent of body fat.

4. Acceptable

Acceptable body fat includes women with 25 to 31 percent of body fat and men with 18 up to 25 percent of body fat.

5. Obese

The last type is obese if the body fat reaches more than 32 percents for women or more than 26 percents for men.

Various Methods How to Calculate Body Fat Percentage

There are many methods how to calculate body fat percentage. In this article, we will share the common methods used:

1. Take a Look

This is considered as the most favored method mostly used by people. However, you have to know that it is not exact and requires a trained eye. In this method, you have to look at the comparison of pictures that describe different types of body fat from essential fat, athletes, fitness, acceptable, to obese. Then, take a look at your own body and compare it to the pictures. You can classify your body fat into one of the types. It may not be exact because you do not know how much percentage of your body fact clearly. You just guess it carefully.

2. Body Fat Caliper

This is the second method how to count body fat percentage. Same with the first method, the result cannot be exact. This method requires you to spend about $ 5 to buy a set of calipers. What you need to do is to pull away your fat from the muscles, pinch them using the caliper, and then measure it. After that, look at the body fat cart to know the percentage. Even though it is not exact, the result will not be too far from the real body fat percentage.

3. Measurement Method

The next method requires you to fill some data. So, it depends on how to fill the data, whether it is right or not. Besides, it also does not take a test to know your exact body fat percentage so that the result is mostly overestimate. However, how to calculate body fat percentage with this method is very simple and easy.

4. Body Fat Scale and Monitor

There are many people who do not like how to calculate body fat percentage with this method because it is commonly inaccurate. With this method, the amount of water in your body will adjust this number drastically because it sends an electrical current in your body.

5. The Bod Pod

If you want the accurate method, this will be a good option. It uses air displacement to calculate the density, volume and mass. Because it is very accurate, how to count in body fat percentage using this method also requires much money because it may cost about $ 75 / session.

6. Water Displacement

This method is also accurate, but the cost very high, too. Even more, it also makes you feel huge pain in your bottom. That is why most people prefer other methods than this one.

7. DEXA Scanning

This is the most accurate method how to calculate body fat percentage compared to the other options. It uses full dual X-ray. However, it is very expensive where you need to spend about % 50 up to $ 150 / session.

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