|
How To Measure
Body Fat
When it all comes down to losing or gaining weight, most people turn to
the scales to determine how much they should lose or gain to have the
weight or the shape that they desire.
However, health experts said weight alone is not a clear indicator of
good health because it does not distinguish between pounds that come
from body fat and those that come from lean body mass or muscle.
|
Overweight or over
fat?
Being over fat and overweight is not the same. Overweight simply means
an excess of total body weight based on population averages for heights
and body frame sizes. On the other hand, obesity is defined as an excess
of body fat regardless of weight.
What we have to consider, experts said, in order to determine
our fitness, is to know our body fat. Remember that body fat is
a percentage of your total weight, so even slender people can
have dangerously high levels of body fat. |
|
 |
Here are three ways of measuring your body fat:
-
Home Body Fat Scales-- Body fat scales claim to measure body fat
quickly and conveniently. These body fat scales use the Bioelectrical
Impedance method to measure your body fat percentage. A low-level
electrical current is passed through your body and the "impedance", or
opposition to the flow of current, is measured.
-
Skin fold Calipers-- Calipers are a tool that looks somewhat like a
giant tweezers. These are used to grasp your skin folds at different
points on your body and measure the thickness. These measurements are
then compared to standard values for persons of your age and gender to
give you your estimated body fat.
-
Hydrostatic Weighing—This is just a fancy term for underwater
weighing. You sit on a scale inside a tank of water and blow out as much
air as you can. You are dunked underwater, where you blow out even more
air. Since fat is lighter than water, the more fat you have, the more
you will float. The scale measures underwater weight to figure out body
density. The margin of error is around 2-3%, but the accuracy depends on
the amount of air you expel. You have to blow it ALL out or it will not
be as accurate.
This is a difficult way to measure body fat since it can be
uncomfortable and even scary to be dunked underwater with no air in the
old lungs.
|
