
An excessive percentage of body fat, however, can cause multiple health problems, such as: You need some body fat to regulate the production of hormones. It is taken from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States. The chart below shows the average body fat percentages of Americans from samples between 1999–2004. Higher levels of body fat may be dangerous for you. This data means that if your body fat percentage is lower than 31% for women and 24% for men, you are in the average range and you have nothing to worry about. The list below comes from the American Council on Exercise and shows the average percentages in specified groups. Once you calculated your body fat percentage, you should compare it with the recommended values. If you're looking for more detailed and accurate calculations, try our Navy Body Fat tool and Army Body Fat tool ! Is my body fat percentage normal?

Remember, due to different body types of the population the estimation might not be 100% accurate! For example, an extremely muscular person will have high weight and BMI values, yet we can't say that such a person is obese. It was tested on 6,510 people and showed estimated error of 4.66%. This equation was validated by the American Diabetes Association. Once you have gather all the data, you can input them all into the body fat calculator.

You should treat this result as a rough estimate it can only tell you if your body fat percentage is drastically too high, but there's no reason to panic if the result differ slightly from the recommended value. Remember that no calculator, however complicated, can replace a visit in a doctor's office. You can estimate your body composition with our body fat percentage calculator.
