Are the online body fat percentage calculators wrong or am I just obese?
So, according to about 10 different body fat percentage calculators I have tried, my body fat percentage is 31%,making me very overweight. Bear in mind I'm a girl, 5"6' and weighing in at 110lbs with a 24 inch waist. And the rest of the calculators I've tried have put me at between 13% and 16%. Noticeably, I'm only put at 31% on calculators that ask for wrist and forearm measurements. So either it's a glitch with these particular calculators, me misunderstanding the instructions, or I need to lose 50lbs. Can I just do a quick survey here ... try out this typical calculator and see if it sounds accurate: http://www.sixpacknow.com/bfcalculator.html Thanks.
Public Comments
- 110lbs is NOT obese!! Don't trust that calculate! you probably have 15% fat or something!
- you should use a BMI calculation 110lbs = 50kg and 5'6" = 1.67 therefore your BMI is 17.9 and that is TOO LOW you are underweight!! % fat for a woman should be between 15(minimum) and 35% with over 20% being desirable for a man its 5 to 25% with 11% being ideal. any calculator that relies on non scientific (eg needs skin fold data) is NOT to be relied on... if you are worried about % body fat buy the special electronic testers. but from what you say you are under weight!! having too little fat will reduce your fertility so if you want children in later life consider putting on more weight being slightly overweight does NOT affect fertility.. it is healthier to be slightly overweight than underweight especially for a woman! (I am talking a few pounds not stones!)
- You can't go by online calculators to predict your body fat. They just go by weight and measurements, they don't physically measure body fat like callipers, hydrostatic weighing or DEXA scanning. But lets say for arguments sake you are 31% body fat at 110lb, then you'd have approx 34lb of fat and 76lb of muscle. Now the actual pounds of fat is perfectly fine, it's just the muscle mass is very low. So it would not be a case of losing weight, but gaining muscle.
