What Body Fat Percentage Is Healthy?

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You might be wondering what percentage of your body is fat? How do you find that out? Are your results good or bad? By the end of this blog we will have educated, explained and reassured you on all things body fat so you are no longer guessing or worrying about your body. 

What is body fat? Body fat is the extra energy your body stores for later, like a backup battery. When you eat food, your body uses what it needs right away to power your muscles, brain and organs. If you eat more energy than you use, your body saves the extra as fat. Your body starts burning fat when you decrease your calories and increase your exercise levels.

How to find out your body fat percentage? How can body fat be measured?

This is the easy part. This can all be done from your smartphone by downloading the mybvi app and taking your first scan. Scans are done by taking 2 photos on your smartphone, one face on and one from the side. In a matter of seconds you will receive your body composition metrics including your total body fat percentage. As well as this, you can see your visceral fat levels which is the bad fat surrounding your organs, key to learning more about your body. 

We recommend measuring your body fat by scanning every 2 weeks to give your body enough time to change so that you can monitor and see the difference of your total body fat percentage. The in app graphs give a great visual to how your progress is doing and whether you are achieving your goals. 

How to interpret the results?

In the app there is a chart which will tell you which range your results are in based on your gender and age, giving you a good guide on what body fat percentage you should be. The ranges are extracted from MRI data which has been exclusively secured for BVI validation from the Medical Research Council. For example, women aged 18-40 the range starts from 15% to 65% total body fat. 15%-21% suggests that your body fat is too low, 21%-33% suggests you have a good proportion of body fat for your body, 33%-39% suggests your body fat is okay but is getting a bit high and 39%-65% suggests your body fat is too high. 

Setting yourself targets for body fat is a great way to give yourself motivation to becoming a healthier you, this can be done within the goals section of the app. A good goal if you're outside of the 21%-33% percent range would be to get in that green area. Ways this can be achieved should be considered and done with moderation, never push yourself too hard. Prioritising a calorie deficit, protein intake, weight training, cardio and sleep schedule are all good ways to be on the road to achieving a lower total body fat %.

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Final Thoughts

Body fat matters because it plays an active role in your body, when you have too much it can increase risks of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic dysfunction. It is vital to know how much total body fat you are carrying to support your long term health and with tools like mybvi it has never been easier. Take 5 minutes out of your day today to download, scan and assess your results to check how your total body fat is affecting your overall health.

References:

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2023). Body fat – The Nutrition Source. Retrieved from https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/healthy-weight/measuring-fat/

Medical Research Council (UK). (2020). MRI body composition data used in validation of BVI measurement models. Research dataset referenced in the UKRI BVI project https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=104099

National Institutes of Health. (2022). Health risks of overweight and obesity. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Retrieved from https://www.niddk.nih.gov

Schoenfeld, B. J., & Aragon, A. A. (2018). How to optimize muscle growth and fat loss with resistance training and nutrition. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 15(1), 4

World Health Organization. (2023). Obesity: Health consequences of being overweight. https://www.who.int