We are pleased to announce that on March 4, 2025, an updated Rich Text Editor will be introduced in the MyFitnessPal Community. To learn more about the upcoming changes, please click here. We look forward to sharing this new feature with you!

Body Fat Percentage Help

melissamarah
melissamarah Posts: 168 Member
edited January 9 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi there,

I was hoping to find out my body fat percentage online. I went to Fat 2 Fit's website, where they have three different BF% calculators, and I measured all the appropriate spots. Boy did I get different numbers on these! They were 29.9%, 68.7%, and 45.8%. WTF? I figured there would be some differing numbers, but that's quite extreme. Using these numbers, one said my goal weight should be 239 and one said 110! I'm 6', so none of these numbers sound right. I'm inclined to go with the middle number, since it sounds about right, and gives me a goal weight that is close to what I estimated.

I should say that I didn't have a tape measure available, so I just used my husband's tie, and then measured that. I know this isn't exact, but I assumed that any margin of error would be in each of my measurements. I don't think that would result in an almost 40% swing between results!

Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,438 MFP Moderator
    Online calculators are going to be wrong. It may be best to go buy some calipers. You can get them for like $10 from amazon.
  • DanaDark
    DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
    I have an electrical impedence hand held device and also use the military body fat calculator. They are very close together.
  • weird_me2
    weird_me2 Posts: 716 Member
    I have a hand held calculator, too and found the Covert-Bailey calculator to be the most accurate/closest result. It makes sense to me because it uses the most measurements.
  • cunfewzed1
    cunfewzed1 Posts: 80
    The hand-held calcs are in-accurate. The online calculators can point you in the right direction if you use a measuring tape. Calipers aren't very accurate unless you have expensive ones. If you want to post a pic, I can give you BF% within a couple %
  • mattagascar
    mattagascar Posts: 708 Member
    I have an electrical impedence hand held device and also use the military body fat calculator. They are very close together.

    ^ This.
  • jjrichard83
    jjrichard83 Posts: 483 Member
    They are ALL fairly inaccurate. Calipers are your best bet, cheapest and provide the best accuracy. What is key in this is that you use the same tools to measure your results time and time again. That way, even if it's inaccurate you can still see the results.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories