The level of body fat you have is a better indication of your health (or lack of) as compared to your body weight. Body fat is measured by a standard known as the body mass index or BMI. Calculation of BMI involves two measurements namely your body weight and height and doesn't tell your BFP. It is simply a correlation between your height and weight. If you started a fitness program and burned belly fat yet added muscle to your frame, your BMI could go up but your BFP would go down.
In order to understand what’s really going on with your body, you should use both indices, BMI AND BFP. BFP has become a hot topic in the recent years as a way of determining how lean a person was. I constantly heard that people who were very vascular and muscular had single digit percentages. Of course, I wanted that low percentage as well!
Whereas the calculation of the BMI is rather simple (check for instance the article “How do I know that I am Overweight?”), BFP is not that easy to determine. There are in fact various methods to figure out how to calculate body fat percentage (for instance using a caliper) but it's best to stick with one method if you're trying to get the most consistent numbers.
For a good estimation you can use the Body Fat Calculator published by the US Army Corp. To get your personal BFP just measure your height, neck, hips and waist (just above the navel), introduce the results in the calculator and press "calculate".
What are typical BFP values?
Well, it’s important to understand that women and men's percentages vary in terms of healthy levels.
Here are typical percentages for BFP for women and men (as recommended by the American Council on Exercise):
Description Women Men
Athletes 14–20% 6-13%
Fitness 21–24% 14–17%
Average 25–31% 18–25%
Obese 32%+ 25%+
