Contents:
- Medical Video: The Ideal Body Fat % For Aesthetics & Overall Health
- What is body fat?
- What is the normal body fat level?
- Why is it important to keep body fat levels normal?
- Measurement of fat levels is a good indicator of health
Medical Video: The Ideal Body Fat % For Aesthetics & Overall Health
During this time, what you notice may be only weight. Excessive weight can increase your risk of experiencing diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. In fact, there are actually more important things you pay attention to than just body weight, namely body fat levels. Why is it important?
What is body fat?
Fat is one of the compositions that make up your body. The composition of fat in the body contributes to your weight, in addition to bones, muscles, tissues, and organs. There are two types of fat in the body, namely essential fats and nonessential fats.
Essential fat is the minimum amount of fat the body needs to perform its normal functions. Like to maintain body temperature, absorb vitamins A, D, E, and K, as a cushion on organs and tissues, maintain healthy skin and hair, and many more.
The amount of essential fat that the body needs to perform its function is approximately 3-12% of the total calories needed by the body. Well, the amount of excess fat that is not needed by the body (other than essential fat) is called nonessential fat.
What is the normal body fat level?
Fat is indeed needed by the body, but too much fat in the body is also not good for health. According to The American Council on Exercise, good body fat levels are:
Women with percent body fat above 32% and men with percent body fat above 26%, meaning having excessive fat levels and can be categorized as obese.
Why is it important to keep body fat levels normal?
The constant accumulation of fat in the body can make a person become obese. But make no mistake, you who are small don't necessarily have a normal percent of fat, you may have almost abnormal fat percent. Meanwhile, you who are big also do not necessarily have a large percentage of fat.
Excessive fat levels can increase the risk of obesity-related diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and certain types of cancer. So, it is important for you to keep fat levels within normal limits so that you avoid the disease.
To find out how much fat you have, you can measure it with a device called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) or by the skinfold method. You should visit a doctor if you want to know what percentage of body fat you have.
Measuring body fat levels may be a very useful thing for those of you who are losing weight. So, you know that what is reduced from your body is fat, not just water.
For those of you who are developing muscle mass it may also be important to know the levels of fat in the body. It is useful to know that what is increasing in your body is muscle mass rather than fat mass.
Measurement of fat levels is a good indicator of health
Percentage of body fat can be an indicator to see a better overall health status, compared to just measuring the Body Mass Index (BMI). This has also been proven in many studies.
One of them is a study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This study shows that body fat percentage is a better indicator to show the risk of obesity related diseases than BMI.
Other studies published by the Sports Health journal also helped strengthen the research. This study reports that the measurement of body fat percentage is more accurate in showing a person classified as obese or not, compared to BMI.
This is because measurements of body fat can show more specific results to determine the actual fat content in your body. Meanwhile, BMI only measures general weight.
