How to measure BODY FAT: Your Fat Calculator

When it all comes down to losing or gaining weight, most people turn to the
scales to determine how much they should lose or gain to have the weight or the
shape that they desire.
However, health experts said weight alone is not a clear indicator of good
health because it does not distinguish between pounds that come from body fat
and those that come from lean body mass or muscle.
Being over fat and overweight is not the same. Overweight simply means an
excess of total body weight based on population averages for heights and body
frame sizes. On the other hand, obesity is defined as an excess of body fat
regardless of weight.
What we have to consider, experts said, in order to determine our fitness, is to
know our body fat. Remember that body fat is a percentage of your total weight,
so even slender people can have dangerously high levels of body fat. (See
Here are three ways of measuring your body fat:
1. Home Body Fat Scales-- Body fat scales claim to measure body fat quickly and
conveniently. These body fat scales use the Bioelectrical Impedance method to
measure your body fat percentage. A low-level electrical current is passed
through your body and the "impedance", or opposition to the flow of current, is
measured.
2. Skin fold Calipers-- Calipers are a tool that looks somewhat like a giant
tweezers. These are used to grasp your skin folds at different points on your
body and measure the thickness. These measurements are then compared to standard
values for persons of your age and gender to give you your estimated body fat.
3. Hydrostatic Weighing—This is just a fancy term for underwater weighing. You
sit on a scale inside a tank of water and blow out as much air as you can. You
are dunked underwater, where you blow out even more air. Since fat is lighter
than water, the more fat you have, the more you will float. The scale measures
underwater weight to figure out body density. The margin of error is around
2-3%, but the accuracy depends on the amount of air you expel. You have to blow
it ALL out or it will not be as accurate. This is a difficult way to measure
body fat since it can be uncomfortable and even scary to be dunked underwater
with no air in the old lungs.