Measuring Body Fat Percentage

What do you generally do to track your fat loss progression? Haven't you been stepping on the same outmoded weighing scale each time? Only if you knew that your body weight is the combined effect of the amount of fat on your body and the amount of lean tissue you possess, you would know that you don't really get an estimate of the body fat simply by weighing yourself. Here are 4 common methods that measure body fat composition.

We have already talked enough about the problem of obesity and looked at the fat loss process in detail. If you haven't yet checked our previous post on abdominal fat loss. You can simply click on the link and pay a visit. Click Here.

Needless to mention excessive body fat has been linked to innumerable health issues and hence it's important that you keep an eye on the amount of body fat you carry. A number of techniques have been deployed for measuring body fat percentage. We have picked four most familiar ones for this discussion.

The BMI

BMI or Body Mass Index is the most common technique used to gain an estimate of the body fat percentage. If ever you'd hear about a formula to calculate body fat composition, most probably it would be the BMI. You would require nothing more than your height and your weight to figure out your body fatness using the BMI technique. So, it is as simple as that. To do the calculation, you should divide your weight in kilograms with the square of your height in meters. This shall give you the BM Index value. Have a look at the following table to decide the category, the value would fall into. 

The Waist to Hip Ratio

This is another easy to perform and a very simple calculation based technique. Measure the length around your waist keeping your navel on the circumference of the measuring tape. Now, do the same for around your mid-hips. Divide the former value with the latter to get the required ratio. A value greater than 0.9 for men and 0.85 for women reflects a case of abdominal obesity.

Skin-fold Measurement Technique

if you follow fitness video bloggers on YouTube or any other platform, you must be familiar with this one. This technique of measuring body fatness is more accurate than the above mentioned methods. This test uses calipers to determine the thickness of fat under the layers of skin. All you need to do is, pinch the skin of the body part with the caliper and jot the measurement. The limitation of this method is that you need to know where exactly to pinch on your body to make the equation give you the best result. Generally, trained individuals would pinch at three different places on the right side of the body, chest (male)/triceps (female), abdominal (near the navel) and mid-quadriceps and then take an average to get the value. You can use the value you get from this calculation to cross check the body fat category mentioned on the descriptive brochure you get along with the caliper on purchase.

Bio-electric Impedance Analysis

This is by far the most efficient technique among the four body fat analysis methodologies under discussion. When using this method, potential human error or the risk of unfair measurement is automatically ruled out. A small magnitude electric current is used to estimate an individual's body fat percentage. Not to worry, the current is totally harmless. This makes use of the fact that current travels faster through the lean tissues as compared to its speed through fat. Even some of your gym weighing scales can measure your body fat percentage. How? Some of the latest weighing machines are equipped with BIA technology. You step on the machine only to complete the circuit with both the feet and the current flows through your body automatically analyzing your body composition. The limitation to this technique could be the variable water content during different parts of the day in your body as that would be reflected in the test results.