What Is Body Fat Percentage?
Body fat percentage is the amount of body fat as a proportion of your body weight.
Reducing excess levels of body fat has shown to reduce the risk of certain conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease,
diabetes and cancer. The chart below shows the healthy ranges for body fat.
Body Fat Ranges for Standard Children
Body Fat Ranges for Standard Adults
Standard (-)
Underfat
Your Body Composition Monitor automatically compares your body fat percentage reading to the Healthy Body Fat Range chart.
Underfat: below the healthy body fat range. Increased risk for health problems.
Standard (-)/Standard (+): within the healthy body fat percentage range for your age/gender.
Overfat: above the healthy range. Increased risk for health problems.
Obese: high above the healthy body fat range. Greatly increased risk of obesity-related health problems.
1,2
3,4
Standard (+)
Overfat
Obese
(Applicable age 7-99)
Susan Jebb et al. New Body Fat Reference Curves for
1
Children. Obesity Rsearch 2004; 12:A156-157
HD McCarthy et al. Body Fat Reference Curves for
2
Children. Int J Obes 2006; 30: 598-602
Gallagher D et al. Healthy percentage body fat
3
ranges:an approach for developing guidelines based
on body mass index. Am J Clin Nutr 2000; 72:
694-701
Based on NIH/WHO BMI Guidelines
4
EN
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