Body Fat Percentage?

Okay, so I clculated my body fat on several different calculaters. For one, I got 14%, one 18%, one 21%, and one 32% What gives? Shouldn't they be at least somewhat within reach of each other. I feel like a flabby sack of lard. I used to have about 6%.

A body fat percentage of 6% as a female? That is ridiculously low.

I'd find more accurate methods of measuring your bf% percentage if I were you. Personal experience has shown me that inputting a couple of measurements on some calculator is very innaccurate.

The online calculators aren't particularly accurate.  If you can ignore the actual number they give you, then you can use it as a tool to measure increase or decrease in body fat.  If you want a measurement that is more accurate, first choice would be water immersion, second choice would be having a well-trained person measure you with calipers.

I'm in a health class right now, and we had to calculate our percent body fat. It involved some very complicated formulas and looking up things on charts and it took a while. I wouldn't expect anything too accurate from an online calculator.

But I can tell you that a healthy percent body fat for women is 12% and for men is 3%. Those are the absolute minimums you should be at. Women have 12% essential fat (men have 3%), which is the fat that your body needs for normal physiological function. Without it your health can actually start to deteriorate. Essential fat is found within muscle tissue, never cells, bone marrow, intestines, the heart, liver, and lungs. Women have essential fat in all those, as well as in breast tissue, the uterus, and other sex-related organs.

I believe you are still considered to be healthy up to 22-26% for women (depending on age) and 17-21% for men (also depending on age).

(Found in "Lifetime Physical Fitness and Wellness: Ninth Edition" by Hoeger and Hoeger)

yes, I know that 6% is extremely low. It was when I was at my lowest weight (82 lbs)

I've always been very athletic and after gaining so much weight post-hospital (most of which is ft) I feel extremely disgusting. I've never had a body fat percntage of more than 15% or so. the 31% kind of freaked me out.

Don't let it freak you out. If you're that worried I'd go have a professional measure you and stuff. Just remember that it's healthy for us girls to have some curves. Up to 26% can still be just fine. From the range of results you got, I definitely would assume the average instead of the highest one. Especially since none of those were very accurate. Try to go to a doctor or something to get a real body composition assessment.

Original Post by skitzabeth:

I'm in a health class right now, and we had to calculate our percent body fat. It involved some very complicated formulas and looking up things on charts and it took a while. I wouldn't expect anything too accurate from an online calculator.

But I can tell you that a healthy percent body fat for women is 12% and for men is 3%. Those are the absolute minimums you should be at. Women have 12% essential fat (men have 3%), which is the fat that your body needs for normal physiological function. Without it your health can actually start to deteriorate. Essential fat is found within muscle tissue, never cells, bone marrow, intestines, the heart, liver, and lungs. Women have essential fat in all those, as well as in breast tissue, the uterus, and other sex-related organs.

I believe you are still considered to be healthy up to 22-26% for women (depending on age) and 17-21% for men (also depending on age).

(Found in "Lifetime Physical Fitness and Wellness: Ninth Edition" by Hoeger and Hoeger)

I have a Tanita Body Composition scale that records Body Fat % and Tanita range for healthy 18-39 age is 21-33%, 40-59 age is 23-34%, 60-99 age is 24-36% all for women and quite different from traditional range values that have been used and online calculators.  Supposedly this is supported by WHO.

Original Post by mischiefdm:

I have a Tanita Body Composition scale that records Body Fat % and Tanita range for healthy 18-39 age is 21-33%, 40-59 age is 23-34%, 60-99 age is 24-36% all for women and quite different from traditional range values that have been used and online calculators. Supposedly this is supported by WHO.

I would believe that. I think the ranges I gave from my book are the healthy ranges, but above that is not necessarily "unhealthy"... It's on a scale from excellent - moderate or something...

Original Post by skitzabeth:

Original Post by mischiefdm:

I have a Tanita Body Composition scale that records Body Fat % and Tanita range for healthy 18-39 age is 21-33%, 40-59 age is 23-34%, 60-99 age is 24-36% all for women and quite different from traditional range values that have been used and online calculators. Supposedly this is supported by WHO.

I would believe that. I think the ranges I gave from my book are the healthy ranges, but above that is not necessarily "unhealthy"... It's on a scale from excellent - moderate or something...

Since the world is becoming focused on 'a healthy body' etc, I would think that composition scales, online calculations and gym measurement/calculation would be approaching a (one) standard so that we are not constantly confused with results.

I had mine done at the gym with the calipers.. came out to be 22.4%..

their card says: unhealthy(too low) is 8% and below

       &nb sp;          &nb sp;          &nb sp; acceptable (lower end) is 9 - 23%

       &nb sp;          &nb sp;          &nb sp; accept able (higher end) is 24 - 31%

       &nb sp;          &nb sp;          &nb sp; unhealthy (too high) is 32% and above

then i did an online calculator -

Your Results

You have 28% body fat.

You have 37.2 Pounds of fat and 95.8 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

then of course there is my bathroom scale that ranges from 28 - 32% on any given day, any given hour (i usually try to check it at the same time each day, on an empty stomach)..

so I will take the caliper measurements anytime lol..

Original Post by unicat:

I had mine done at the gym with the calipers.. came out to be 22.4%..

their card says: unhealthy(too low) is 8% and below

acceptable (lower end) is 9 - 23%

accept able (higher end) is 24 - 31%

unhealthy (too high) is 32% and above

then i did an online calculator -

Your Results

You have 28% body fat.

You have 37.2 Pounds of fat and 95.8 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

then of course there is my bathroom scale that ranges from 28 - 32% on any given day, any given hour (i usually try to check it at the same time each day, on an empty stomach)..

so I will take the caliper measurements anytime lol..

Your results are precisely the *confusion* that I'm talking about.  The bathroom scale or at least mine, Tanita, is supported by WHO, World Health Organization.

The caliper measurement and online calculators are supported by what? Whatever their resource is, why aren't they trying to standardize so that all ar in agreement? And who can we contact to complain about? CC does not appear to know.

Original Post by mischiefdm:

Original Post by unicat:

I had mine done at the gym with the calipers.. came out to be 22.4%..

their card says: unhealthy(too low) is 8% and below

acceptable (lower end) is 9 - 23%

accept able (higher end) is 24 - 31%

unhealthy (too high) is 32% and above

then i did an online calculator -

Your Results

You have 28% body fat.

You have 37.2 Pounds of fat and 95.8 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

then of course there is my bathroom scale that ranges from 28 - 32% on any given day, any given hour (i usually try to check it at the same time each day, on an empty stomach)..

so I will take the caliper measurements anytime lol..

Your results are precisely the *confusion* that I'm talking about.  The bathroom scale or at least mine, Tanita, is supported by WHO, World Health Organization.

The caliper measurement and online calculators are supported by what? Whatever their resource is, why aren't they trying to standardize so that all ar in agreement? And who can we contact to complain about? CC does not appear to know.

 Personally I find the Durnin-Womersley caliper method to be the most accurate.

Scales tend to vary due to hydration and various other factors. Calipers show little variance.

Most bodybuilders and trainers use calipers for this reason.

ok lets forget about my post...

I completely confused two different things lol

Original Post by froogs:

well you definetly can't go by CC's BMI tool.  It says I have 30.8% body fat right now (22/m/215/5'10").  At my worst in college so far I was 215 2 years ago.  I went to my highschool football trainer and asked her to take a BMI and I was at around 21%, which for me was VERY HIGH. 

BMI isn't measured in % nor is it a measure of body fat.  I think your getting your measures mixed up.

How is BMI and BF% related? Am I missing something?

Yep your right, I think I got confused because oomboo said "Okay, so I clculated my body fat "  And she said how it got as high as 32%.  I thought she was referring to the BMI tool on this site.  Yea  I really got lost on this one haha SORRY!!

But I think I do sort of have a point.  How is me getting down to 165lbs Healthy and a moderate weight?!  Dropping 50-60 lbs is nowhere near healthy for a 22 year old male.  That's why the BMI doesn't really make sense to me

Original Post by imccarthy:

Original Post by mischiefdm:

Original Post by unicat:

I had mine done at the gym with the calipers.. came out to be 22.4%..

their card says: unhealthy(too low) is 8% and below

acceptable (lower end) is 9 - 23%

accept able (higher end) is 24 - 31%

unhealthy (too high) is 32% and above

then i did an online calculator -

Your Results

You have 28% body fat.

You have 37.2 Pounds of fat and 95.8 Pounds of lean (muscle, bone, body water).

then of course there is my bathroom scale that ranges from 28 - 32% on any given day, any given hour (i usually try to check it at the same time each day, on an empty stomach)..

so I will take the caliper measurements anytime lol..

Your results are precisely the *confusion* that I'm talking about. The bathroom scale or at least mine, Tanita, is supported by WHO, World Health Organization.

The caliper measurement and online calculators are supported by what? Whatever their resource is, why aren't they trying to standardize so that all ar in agreement? And who can we contact to complain about? CC does not appear to know.

Personally I find the Durnin-Womersley caliper method to be the most accurate.

Scales tend to vary due to hydration and various other factors. Calipers show little variance.

Most bodybuilders and trainers use calipers for this reason.

The accuracy of the methods is not what I'm complaining/ranting about. It's the variation of acceptable healthy ranges that differ between the two that gets me.

Anyway, I just had a caliper analysis at the gym which was compared to last time at 135# to 139.8 and for which a 4.8# gain showed 7.1# muscle gain and 2.3 fat loss!

Body Fat % went from 16.5 to 14.1, acceptable healthy on their scale range, in 7 mos.,  then I questioned Body Fat going from 20.1 to 16.5 in 5 weeks and another variable was added; Trainer calculated it for 20 year old instead of 70 year old because I wasn't typical 70 year old!

This helps to confirm Tanita data of LBM gain of 6.3#s while staying at the same weight since 12/31/07 with Body Fat decreasing by 4.5%, so I just have to be patient!

Body Fat went from 33.8 to 29.3%, acceptable healthy on their scale range, in 3 mos.