Am I fat? Am I skinny?
I have noticed many people asking this question, and others have responded "Check your BMI". The thing that people don't understand is that the BMI does not take your body fat % into account, so someone could be considered "severly overweight" using the BMI, yet they have a healthy body fat % of 12%. Also a person could be well within the "healthy" range of the BMI, but have a body fat % of 30%, which is in reality is considered overweight. This is why I have modified it to use in combination of the BMI and the body fat %. To get your body fat %, there are several ways, but the most cheapest, and most accurast way, would be to get a professional to measure your body fat % using a set of calipers. Your BMI is within or greater than the "healthy range" Your body fat % is less than 25% i.e BMI = 18.0 (this would be considered underweight!) Body Fat % = 30% Overweight! i.e. BMI = 26 (this would be considered very obese!) Body fat % = 15% Normal!
Public Comments
- Is this a question or a statement? How am I supposed to answer a statement? I guess this isn't an answer, either, as all I did was ask questions.
- If you look in the mirror and see a few pounds on you that are small but you would like them Gone! then just have a couple pounds extra. Now it your stomach is a big pouch then yes you are fat. If you like how you look it's okay, don't worry about.
- Zzz oh um show us how much u weigh
- Thanks a lot for asking this question because i have the same problem, BMI =19, body fat =30%...i always think that i need to lose weight,but my parents think not
- I totally agree, in fact I think it's about time they start cross referencing BMI with body fat percentage to find out what is healthy. BMI is still important as generally speaking, those with a criteria of 18.5-25 tend to be the most healthy and live the longest. However, there are people who will fall within these limits, yet have too little or too much body fat and there will also be people who fall outside these limits with totally healthy levels of body fat. These are people who the BMI does not work for, as it does not classify their body fat level correctly. But you have to remember men and women do have different levels of body fat, there is actually about an 8% difference between body fat levels of men and women. So for a man 30% body fat is obese, but for a woman it's just verging on being overfat. The same as 12% for a man is completely healthy, but for a woman this is far too low and unhealthy. 25% body fat is too much for a male, but is perfectly acceptable for a woman, etc. There have been studies to determine how BMI corresponds to body fat percentage. For the average, medium build person they found that a BMI of 18.5-25 correponded to around 11%-23% body fat in men and 19%-31% in women. They found a BMI of 30 corresponded to about 38% body fat in women and 30% body fat in men. Obviously athletic people will have lower levels of body fat, but by using BMI you can deterine whether low body fat percentage is due to being 'athletic' with a high muscle mass or just plain underweight. There is still a lot of different information around regarding what levels of body fat are healthy. The main problem is what fitness professionals and medical professionals deem as healtlhy levels of body fat do tend to vary somewhat. For example, some fitness websites will state 25%-30% body fat as being too high for a woman, but many medical websites will state this as a perfectly healthy level of body fat for a female, in fact it is recommended that pregnant women do not have less than 25% body fat. I guess opinions vary so much because the medical field are looking at body fat from a very different perspective to the fitness industry. Hopefully some time soon, they will put in some clear government guidelines which take into account both perspectives and come up with an acceptable body fat percentage range for males and females. HTH : )
- well i am 5ft 9 i weight 8 stone(114lbs) and i have a 22inch waist and i have a body fat percentage of -13.5 i really don't no how that works does that mean im gonna die lol
- im sooooo confused but my awnser is thats im underweight i guess or really buff cuz i got 12% bmi
