Are you wondering about what your
BODY FAT PERCENTAGE SHOULD BE?
Below is an article that I found that explains everything that you need to know.
Don't know what your body fat percentage is?
You can easily ask a trainer from your gym if they have a machine or a way to calculate your approximate body fat percentage. You can also purchase your own hand held machine for cheap online. A popular brand name is OMRON and can be found by searching it on the web or by clicking on the green link below.
Ideal Body Fat Percentage Chart:
How Lean Should You Be?
While there is some debate as to what constitutes a “healthy” body fat range, I have below 2 different types of body fat percentage charts, which I will walk you through along with some insights into how to read each chart.
Ideal Body Fat Percentage Chart #1: American Council on Exercise
The chart below from the American Council on Exercise (ACE) is one of the most commonly used body fat charts. As you can see, women have a higher body fat percentage relative to men for a given level. Women have more fat because of physiological differences such as hormones, breasts, and sexual organs. In addition, women need a higher amount of body fat for ovulation.
“Essential fat” is the minimum amount of fat necessary for basic physical and physiological health. There is a lot of controversy over what amount of body fat is optimal for overall health. A research paper by Gallgher et. al. in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2000) came to the conclusion that certain low body fat ranges are “underfat”, which implies “unhealthy”. According to this research paper, men who are between 20-40 years old with under 8% body fat are considered “underfat”, whereas a “healthy” range is described as between 8-19%. For women in this same age group, any level under 21% is “underfat” and 21-33% is considered “healthy”.
In my opinion, I think body fat is only one measure of health, so stating a certain body fat level is “unhealthy” doesn’t give the whole story. In fact, surprisingly, some sumo wrestlers have significant amounts of body fat, but generally have low cholesterol levels and can live long lives (See: Do You Eat Like a Sumo Wrestler?). Conversely, to imply that anyone who has a six pack (below 8% body fat for men), is very athletic, and eats well is “underfat”, or “unhealthy” is a stretch. We all have different shapes, sizes, and fat distribution profiles, but I think the chart above is a good starting point. The limitation of the ACE chart is that while it takes into account gender differences, it does NOT take into account your age, which is exactly why I included the next two charts.
Ideal Body Fat Percentage Chart #2: Jackson & Pollock
AccuFitness is the maker of the popular Accumeasure Body Fat caliper, which is a one site skin fold body fat measurement method. When you buy the product, AccuFitness includes a body fat percentage chart based on research by Jackson & Pollock (which has become the industry standard) that I think both aesthetically and from a health perspective is right on the money.
In case you don’t understand how to read this chart, the age column is on the left, the body fat percentages are in the chart, and the colors represent Lean, Ideal, Average, and Above Average ranges. So if you are a 30 year old man, a body fat percentage between 10% and 16% is considered “Ideal” and between 18% and 22% is considered “Average”, and so on. I also like how this chart has the color red to represent percentages that are too high and the green to represent ideal ranges. The first chart is for men, and the second for woman.
You may have noticed as your age increases, your acceptable body fat within these ranges increases as well. Why you ask? As we get older, there are physiological changes in our bodies so that our fat increases.
There are 3 types of fat: subcutaneous (under the skin), visceral (around the organs), and intramuscular (in between muscle, like a marbled steak). The amount of subcutaneous body fat you have can stay the same, but the visceral and intramuscular fat increases as you age.
I hope this discussion of this ideal body fat percentage chart was helpful for you! Let me know if you have any questions.
Article taken from: http://www.builtlean.com/2010/08/03/ideal-body-fat-percentage-chart/
