How much fat are you carrying? Find out if you have a healthy body fat percentage with this calculator. This tool provides: body fat percentage for women, body fat percentage for men, and recommended ideal body fat precentage based on your activity levels.
This body fat calculator is based on the body fat algorithms developed by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corp and the YMCA.
Don't have all these measurements? Click the name to use one of the shorter form Body Fat Calculator formulas, Army, Marines, Navy, or YMCA.
Varying Degrees of Body Fat Percentage for Men and Women
When people hear the term “body fat percentage”, they normally associate the term with professional bodybuilders. This is because much ado is made about low body in body building circles. Professionals must have a very low body fat percentage (5% or so) in order to compete. While this raises awareness towards developing low body fat, it also creates a somewhat limited perception. Body fat percentage means different things on different levels. Actually, 5% body fat can cause serious health problems for the average person. Conversely, 25% fat can either be healthy or unhealthy depending upon your age and gender. In order to provide clarity, it’s best to look at a scale of body fat percentages and what they represent.
It is important to note the differences between men and women when it comes to determining healthy body fat percentages. Mainly, women are healthier with higher body fat percentages than men. This is because women require higher fat levels for safe pregnancy. As a result, different body fat percentages will be provided with the same health assessment for both genders.
For women between age 20 and 40, 19% to 26% body fat is generally good to excellent. For women age 40+ to 60+, 23% to 30% is considered good to excellent.
For men between age 20 and 40, 10% to 20% body fat is generally good to excellent. For men age 40+ to 60+, 19% to 23% is considered good to excellent.
If the body fat percentages for both age groups are higher than the highest listed healthy percentage or lower than the lowest healthy percentage, the result may be considered fair or poor. As such, seeking a way to lose fat is necessary. Fat loss is not that difficult, but does require some sort of exercise program, diets alone will not help with fat loss.
In order to ascertain your body fat percentage, you need something to figure it out. If you want a general idea of what your body fat percentage is, an online calculator can be helpful. By providing the body fat calculator with information about age, weight, gender, the body fat calculator can provide general information on body fat percentage. There are several different formulas, you can try the army body fat calculator for a different estimate.
Body fat scales and body composition monitors can help you monitor your fat loss. Many scales will record data over time and will work for multiple users. You can easily determine if your diet and workout is helping you lose fat. You can get more information on body fat scales here.
More body fat information can be found here.
Another important measurement for you to consider is you body mass index, also known as BMI, you can find out your body mass with our BMI Calculator
Want to know how many calories do I burn a day? This is your basal metabolic rate, our BMR calculator will tell you the answer.
Calculator Source: Created by the U.S. Marine Corp, Navy, Army and YMCA
If you place 1 pound of muscle next to 1 pound of fat, the muscle would be 22% smaller in size.
It says I’m between 12 and 19%, but the electrical impedance test tells me I’m 6%
Some readings I do about my body fat is more around 40% and other readings are more in the 20s what’s going on here?
I have found the home impedance devices to be so inaccurate as to be useless. Unless you are a refugee or a ripped bodybuilder I don’t think you are 6%.
This is fairly accurate if you measure your body parts *in the right places*. I came out at 13.69% (US Navy method), which is very close (within 1%) of other accurate methods I’ve used.
What are the other accurate methods you have used I have done a lot some say 25 for me or 19 I don’t use the electronic device just a tape measure
Without very specialized equipment, these are all just estimates. Anything based on measurements is a formula created after measuring 1000’s of people. There are outliers that don’t fit the norm and will generate different results based on the formula and who was measured to create the baseline.