what is average body fat for a person

i calculated mine and it is like 45% which strikes me as odd because somone heavier than me (maybe taller, i dont know) said thiers was 30% but who knows... maybe im doing it wrong...

what percentage is average/healthy?

A BMI betwen 19 and 25 is considered "normal" by the WHO/CDC. Real BMI measurements (not the online calculators) take into acount muscle/fat ratio. Since muscle weighs more than fat, the online calculators will show a higher BMI for muscular people when really their BMI is lower.

Try this link: http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/bmi.htm

You can see how you rate (obese, overweight, normal, underweigth) based on the WHO-CDC scale or on a newer scale the page creator (Steven Halls)
put together that takes into account height/age/sex.

I had a question for Dr. Halls because his scale showed me as minimally overweight when WHO-CDC showed my weight as within the normal range.

This was his reply to my question:

"I think that the CDC criteria of BMI=25=overweight,
is a little too high for women. I think it should be a little lower. ( and I think a BMI=25=overweight, is a little too low for men, and should be a little higher for men.)

So, with the CDC criteria, when your BMI is under 25, it will call you normal, perhaps flattering you, when you may actually be a little bit overweight. But the halls.md v2 criteria will call a woman of your age and height, as "marginally overweight' at a BMI of 23.5, (approximately). As you discovered no doubt, your weight of 151 lbs, is just 1 pound above that threshold.

Another fact at work in my calculation, is an adjustment
for women's height. On this page http://www.halls.md/body-mass-index/age.htm
near the bottom, it shows that taller women tend to have
lower median BMI levels than shorter women... so I
considered that to be an effect of leg-length, that
penalizes short women, and labels greater proportions
of short women as overweight, compared to tall women.
So, I added in a little adjustment, and in you case,
being 5' 7" or 170cm, my calculation lowers the BMI
threshold by nearly 1 unit, for a woman of your height.

Thus, for a taller woman, it does become possible for
the CDC criteria to be a little more flattering, more
lenient, than the halls.md definition.

But for shorter women, and most men, the halls.md
criteria are a little less likely than the CDC criteria
to label you as overweight, or marginally overweight.

You've therefore stumbled onto one of the little oddities
of my calculator... it may seem odd, on superficial
inspection. Actually, another place my calculator
seems odd, is in the transition years from teenage
to young adult criteria. You can see that, in the
graphs that appear near the top of the page
of the URL I gave you above. There's a little kink/plateau
in the "overweight" curve for young women,
where I try to never allow the "overweight" threshold to
drop below 25, as it joins up to the pediatric definitions, that peg age=18 - BMI=25 as international standard values.


Hope that explains things. If not, I'm always happy to
receive more feedback and rebuttal.
Steve Halls"

His explanation sounds good to me.

Hope some of this helped.
Barb

Hi New Here BF% refers to that percentage of your body that is just fat, nothing but fat. The rest is Lean Body Mass (LBM) - water, muscle, organs, bones - everything but fat. So, yes, it's possible for people who weigh more to have a lower BF% than someone who is weighs less; it's all about the percentages.

You should be careful not to confuse BF% with BMI (Body Mass Index). The two are very different.

BMI is a calculation using height and weight designed to calculate body fat, however it has drawbacks and it's not a good way to actually determine body fat %. It does not take into account lean body mass, so healthy individuals with a lot of lean mass and low body fat can get readings saying they are overweight or obese. While it's possible to have the same BMI and the same BF% it's not necessary. The relation between fatness and BMI is influenced by age and gender. For example, women are more likely to have a higher percent of body fat than men for the same BMI. At the same BMI, older people have more body fat than younger adults.

A good example would be someone who lifts weights.

If we take a body builder with the following stats: weight 220 lbs., height 6'2", BF 9% and enter them into the BMI calculator we get a BMI of 27.5 - By BMI standards this person is overweight, by body fat % standards he's in amazing shape, which is the most accurate?

What is normal BF? It varies from men to women and from age group to age group. The elderly have a higher BF% than the young and women have a higher BF% than men. Determing a good range will depend on where you sit in those variables.

Here's a little more in depth info on BF% : using BF% as goal if you follow this post to the end you'll find a chart with examples of BF% for women at various ages. In the following post you'll find one for men as well.

Cheers,
Nat

Nat,

Guess I shouldn't try reading early in the morning. Saw BF and mind read BMI. Oops!

I've been too lazy to keep track of my measurements so I haven't calculated BF since I went off induction. Maybe it was because I wasn't too pleased with what the numbers were.

Guess it's time to start again. I'm near goal but still have plenty of padding in the middle. Maybe my BF staring me in the face will get me to excercise instead of trying out new LC cookie recipes!

Barb

Barb, can I join the club?

I like the calculator at www.zoneperfect.com under resources. It uses measurements from waist and hips for women.

Protien power also has a calculator in the back of it's book you can use.

Hiya
I run into these problems with BMI too.
I put my measurements into www.mybodycomp.com
That site tells me my LEAN body mass (I'm 5'9) is 172lbs. If I put 5'9, 172lbs into the BMI calculator it says I'm in the "normal" range!!! with ZERO fat! Madness - that whole BMI thing is just insane.

Cheers!
Steven

yeah, i think the whole thing is pretty confusing.. i dont understand how my body can be almost 50% fat when im not THAT big (174 5'4'') i think maybe since my stomach is disproportionately big, it throws the scale off... it also says my lean body mass is 98lbs, does that mean this scale is telling me i should be 98lbs?????

i understand BMI more than i understand body fat.

Then have a read through the link to the post about Using BF% as your goal. It explains LBM and BF% and how much you not only should have, but how much you need to have.

Yes, 98lbs of you may be LBM, but if you weighed 98 lbs that would give you a BF% of 0 - and you'd be quite dead. Some of our BF is essential to life, and for women it's close to 12 or 13% (which is why it's so hard to get below that).

Nat

i just read through that link real fast and it did help me understand it a tiny bit more.... i guess i need to get my body fat taken in a more accurate way than an online calculator since i think my body is really abdormal in shape so maybe its throwing off the scale

thanks everyone

i also just realized that maybe the problem is that im not measuring right... does anyone have any tips for measuring correctly?

Measure your abdomen at the belly button, I use my hip bones as side guides. for hips spread legs 4 inches apart, then measure at widest point.

It could be possible to be at 50% body fat. Most healthy averave women at thier "ideal" weight still have a good 25%. I've moved from 27% BF - 23%BF while only losing about 5 pounds.

Years of yo yo dieting can also raise BF% as lean mass has been consumed when not enough protien and calories have been eaten.

My lean muscle mass lists at 131 but a year ago I weighed 120?

My goal is between 125-130 how does that work?