|
BMI, Body Fat %, and something called the Army Body Fat Calculator?
How can you calculate your body fat? I heard about BMI but I can't figure out how to do that since I'm not very good in math.
In addition, what is an army body fat calculator? Someone said that when calculating body fat that they went by the "army body fat calculator"--how is that any different? What in the world could an Army Body Fat Calculator mean? Is there a certain book or website I need to reading about the army body fat calculator? I would assume it's better but I don't know how your body fat % would be calculated by the army.
Isn't there just like a body fat percentage chart I can look at to tell me what weight I would be healthiest at instead of doing some sort of a BMI math?
Anyway, my main question is, how can you calculator your body fat correctly?
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Health?
Ok first off the first hit on an internet search for Army Body Fat Calculator gave this:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Looks interesting. Has a few tabs, the second one measures bf. Will give you far better results than most online things I have seen.
Now to answer your question. It is really not very accurate to determine whether or not one is overweight by using a predetermined chart like BMI. That is because our body compositions are all different. These charts are standardised, which means that people with larger/ smaller builds, higher/ lower muscle percentages will get plain wrong results.
I can give you an example using myself when I tried applying these formulas back in my mid twenties. I weighed 93 kg (205 pounds) at 1.83 (6 foot) at the time. I weight trained, ran, played soccer and tennis. My bf was low enough that my abs were quite visible (though not a perfect six pack). According to the charts though I was overweight. Thats because it failed to account that I am wide as a door. If I followed their recommendations I would have starved myself to death lol.
Therefore you need specific measurements. Skin fold is the most common (see below), although the army calculator up there should give you decent results. Where it risks misleading is that it focuses on two areas. That means that someone with a larger belly will get incorrect overall bf measurements. As might someone with a very large neck.
The most common way that bodybuilders measure bodyfat is using calipers. Here is a link that talks a bit about it and has products below:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
They can be used to measure skinfold thickness all over your body (from your triceps to your calfs) and therefore are a very versatile tool.
Good luck.
Alin 33/m
]
More Questions: |