Steps to Estimate Body Fat Percentage from BMI
Generally, body fat is looked upon in a bad light. However, body fat serves an important purpose. Your body stores the fat from the food you want and uses it as energy, allowing you to perform your daily activities. However, when your body stores too much fat, it can lead to serious health issues like high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart diseases.
Knowing how much body fat you need is vital so that you can know your exact health status and take the necessary steps to keep the body fat under control. The ideal body fat content may differ from person to person based on their age, gender, profession, body type, etc.
Let us look at the steps to estimate body fat percentage.
- Know the ideal or recommended body fat percentage
Firstly, you must acknowledge the fact that having too much or too little body fat is not good. If you want to reduce body fat, then it is important to eat a healthy diet and do regular workout; it can be yoga, Pilates, or aerobics.
Let us look at the ideal body fat percentage range.
For women aged between 20-40 years, the ideal range is 21-33%
For women aged between 41-60 years, the ideal range is 23-35%
For women aged between 61-79 years, the ideal range is 24-36%
For men aged between 20-40 years, the ideal range is 8-19%
For men aged between 41-60 years, the ideal range is 11-22%
For men aged between 61-79 years, the ideal range is 13-25%
- Know your weight
Once you know the ideal body fat range, the next step is to weigh yourself. Different types of weighing scales give different results. Also, depending on the time of the day you weigh yourself, the number may vary. Thus, to get accurate results, it is advisable to weigh yourself at the same time of the day for a few days to get average body weight.
- Calculate the BMI
The BMI or Body Mass Index can be calculated based on your weight and height. Once you know your exact body weight and height, you can calculate the BMI manually using the below formula – BMI = kg/m2 .
If you are not comfortable with manual calculation, then you can use the BMI calculator. It is an online tool that allows you to compute your BMI. You must enter the details in the relevant fields, and the tool will do the calculation automatically and give you the results instantly.
- Calculate the body fat percentage
According to a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, adults can calculate the body fat percentage accurately using the following gender-based formula in conjunction with BMI.
For women, the formula for calculating body fat percentage is
Body fat percentage = (1.20 x BMI) + (0.23 x Age) – 5.4
For men, the formula for calculating body fat percentage is
Body fat percentage = (1.20 x BMI) + (0.23 x Age) – 16.2
- Compare the body fat percentage
After you compute your body fat percentage using the above formula, it is vital that you compare the results to know if you have ideal body fat or if you have more body fat. This will give you a fair idea about your health status.
Final Word
Now that you know the steps to calculate the body fat percentage, do the calculation and determine your current health status. If your body fat percentage is too high or too low, then make necessary lifestyle changes to live a healthy life.
