Overweight Or Overfat

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A person's scale and mirror only tell a fraction of the story of whether or not a person needs  to shed some fat. Body fat, not necessarily a person's weight,  is the  best indicator of this.

A healthy, physically fit man has a total fat content of 15 to 18 percent.  This number is slightly higher for women at 20 to 25 percent.  A key point to remember is a person can be overweight  without being overfat and can be overfat without being overweight.

Case in point: a football linebacker that  is 6 feet tall and weighs 275 pounds is overweight according to standard height weight charts. Nevertheless, his body fat content could be as low as 10 percent.  This would make him fit, not fat.  On the other hand, a man whose weight  is within the normal range, but exercises very little or not at all may have  a body fat  percentage of 20 percent or more.  This man would be considered overfat.

There are numerous techniques for measuring body fat percentage.  Many involve pinching and measuring subcutaneous fat (fat just below the skin).  The most accurate method, however, involves weighing a person while they are submerged in water.  Fat floats; bone and muscle mass sink.  The higher body fat percentage a person has, the less they will weigh when submerged in water.

This fact is one of the reasons a tape measure can be of better use to a dieter than a scale.  Because muscle weighs more than fat, a person's weight may tend to stabilize and even increase during  the course of a weight loss program that includes physical training.  Do not be dismayed.  If you are wearing smaller clothes than when you started or lost  inches from your neck, waist or hips you are leaner than when you started.

Body mass index is another tool that useful for persons trying to improve their health.  Read more about body mass index at Do I Need To Know My Body Mass Index.

Overweight Or Overfat
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