Diet Charts and Calculators
There are many ways to decide if you are too fat. You can look in the mirror, listen to friends, use the bathroom scale, a tape measure or an old outfit from your ideal weight era.
Other ways are to check your perception against the accepted norms, using precise calculations. Try our calculators to see if your perception of yourself is right.
Clever automatic calculators and at a glance charts:
BMI | Body Frame | Male Body | Ideal Weight Chart
Other Measures:
Here are some other tests that measure body fat. Sorry, you're on your own for these–no clever automatic calculators are included.
PINCH TEST
Special calipers are used to measure folds of skin and fat in several spots on the body and average them. It is not a precise method; a reading of twenty five percent body fat could mean an actual number as high as twenty eight or as low as twenty two – or worse with a badly trained technician. Some obesity scientists describe this method as a rip-off .
Widely available at health clubs; takes a few minutes
BIOELECTRICAL IMPEDANCE TEST
You lie down, a technician attaches electrodes to one hand and one foot, and a harmless radio-frequency pulse is run through the body to measure its water content. That number provides a guide to body fat with an error of 2 or 2 1/2 percentage points. But exercise and liquid intake before the test can skew results.
Takes only a few minutes; found at health clubs and sports medicine clinics
IMMERSION TEST
So far the "gold standard" of body-fat measurement, this test requires you to expel the air from your lungs and get dunked into a pool half a dozen times. It under or overestimates body fat by only 1 percentage point.
Available at many hospitals and some gyms, but it is gruelling and can last an hour
BOD POD
An eggshaped chamber that offers precision without pain. You step in, sit for 20 seconds, and that's it. The chamber measures air displacement, which can be converted to relative fat when weight is factored in, since muscular people are denser.
Preliminary tests show it's as good as immersion.
Found at only a few dozen big hospitals and doctor's offices, but it's quick and easy |
