Understanding your body composition can give you a pretty good idea of how well your physique is and where you can make some improvements. Body composition does not tell everything about your body, but it can give you’re a good understanding of your ratios. First, I am going to talk about Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is based on someone’s height and weight and can determine weather or not your body is at a healthy weight. To calculate your BMI follow this formula – Mass(kg)/(height(m))X(height(m)) = BMI
<18 + under weight
18-24 = Healthy Weight
25-29 = Over weight
>30 = Obese
Keep in mind when doing this, BMI does not account for muscle mass(which weighs more than fat).
Next is the body fat percentage, which can give you a little better reading than the BMI. Body fat percentage (BFP) determines how much percent of your body weight is fat. There are a few different ways of doing this. A few ways you can test body fat percentages are with skin fold clamps, anthropometric, hand held electronic monitor, or hydrostatic weighing. The BFP zones are as follows –
Men Women
2-5% = Essential fat 10-12% = Essential
6-14% = Athletes 14-20% = Athletes
14-17% = Fitness 21-24% = Fitness
18-24% = Acceptable 25-31% = Acceptable
>25% = Obese >32% = Obese
