Body fat in men vs women

Why women by 25% body fat look awesome whereas men look terrible?
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Replies

  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
    Because women store it in different places?

    Also boobs. They generally make everything better.

    Fact.
  • aliceclutz90
    aliceclutz90 Posts: 151 Member
    Also apparently women's healthy body fat percentage is higher than men's because women need more to prepare for things like carrying a child? This is what a couple of "fit pros" have told me anyway! And yeah I guess women's fat distributes more evenly over the body rather than sitting on the gut like with men
  • melham
    melham Posts: 233 Member
    Because women store it in different places?

    Also boobs. They generally make everything better.
    snazzyjazzy wins the interwebs for today.
  • M_Jo
    M_Jo Posts: 80 Member
    Women have a higher essential body fat percentage due to breasts and reproduction cycles. That isn't to say that a woman with lower body fat is less healthy, however. I had my biometrics done at the clinic a couple weeks ago and am at 12% body fat. Putting a specific number in your goals isn't realistic. Go with what feels good and looks good to YOU and your health professional.
  • Yeller_Sensation
    Yeller_Sensation Posts: 373 Member
    Because women store it in different places?

    Also boobs. They generally make everything better.
    snazzyjazzy wins the interwebs for today.

    I concur.
  • lovelylela415
    lovelylela415 Posts: 91 Member
    Also apparently women's healthy body fat percentage is higher than men's because women need more to prepare for things like carrying a child? This is what a couple of "fit pros" have told me anyway! And yeah I guess women's fat distributes more evenly over the body rather than sitting on the gut like with men

    we require more lipids for healthy menstrual cycles

    here's a quote from this link, but there's way more to read if you go to the full article http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/women/a/Amenorrhea.htm
    Amenorrhea in athletes, sometimes called exercise-associated amenorrhea, occurs when a woman doesn't have a regular period either because she exercises too much, eats too few calories or both. In order to have regular periods women need to consume a certain number of calories and maintain around 16 percent body fat or more. If a woman has too little body fat the ovaries stop producing estrogen and the woman stops menstruating.
    There are many causes of amenorrhea, but in athletes stopping your period is a warning sign that the body is under too much stress and has too little energy stores to support healthy functioning. Experts speculate that a woman stops ovulating and menstruating to protect against pregnancy during extreme physiological stress and to use any available energy to support her basic physiological processes. Intense exercise and extremely low body weight has also been linked with lower levels of the hormone estrogen which is necessary to maintain healthy bones.
  • ldrosophila
    ldrosophila Posts: 7,512 Member
    Genetics XX vs XY. However, as a male you can burn fat better than any furnace out there. A woman may struggle to drop fat % as her body is designed to hold onto those stores even at the expense of muscle.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,879 Member
    T & A....
  • needernt
    needernt Posts: 675 Member
    Pretty much original and nice ideas up until now. thank you!
  • nxd10
    nxd10 Posts: 4,570 Member
    After puberty men put on RELATIVELY more muscle, women RELATIVELY more fat. Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts are fat, not muscle (minor pelvic differences).

    If you have really big breasts what you have is a higher percentage of body fat. Same body fat with little itty ones is fat deposited elsewhere - and it doesn't look as good.

    At my skinniest - when I danced 5 hours a day 7 days week - I wouldn't have an extremely low body fat despite my then 18.1 BMI because I am definitely not a small busted woman.


    Yeah, and fat on butts and boobs looks better than fat on belly. And that's where women v. men put it.
  • sobriquet84
    sobriquet84 Posts: 607 Member
    Because women store it in different places?

    Also boobs. They generally make everything better.
    snazzyjazzy wins the interwebs for today.

    I concur.

    only half wins.

    forgot teh butts.
  • escloflowneCHANGED
    escloflowneCHANGED Posts: 3,038 Member
    Why do some men wear speedos, we may never know...
  • Lifelink
    Lifelink Posts: 193 Member
    After puberty men put on RELATIVELY more muscle, women RELATIVELY more fat. Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts are fat, not muscle (minor pelvic differences).
    After puberty, women RELATIVELY more. Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts are fat, not muscle (minor pelvic differences).
    After puberty, women RELATIVELY more. Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts.
    After puberty, women RELATIVELY more. Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts.
    Wider hips, thighs, and bigger breasts.

    Welp, time for me to put the grapefruit in the microwave. My body is ready.
  • my partner had abb lines showing at a tested bodyfat of 25% before she ever entered a gym and looks even more fabulous just a year on, 6lb lighter,stronger,fitter, more "toned" and hasnt even bothered to change her diet - looks better than most teens at 40 years old and now 21% bodyfat

    Some of the womens claims of low body fat on here is just baloney and should be taken with a pinch of salt by other women as i see women putting photo s up here claiming all sorts of low figures and not an abb in sight an if i m honest they still look fat around the belly.

    Every woman carries it differently...if you look at my profile pic, my abs are visible and that's at 35%bf.

    I love that you think so highly of your wife, but you don't need to criticize other posters to do it.

    At 41 next week, I'm right around 20% and whether my abs show depends entirely on what time of day it is. If I've had any beer, for example, the abs instantly vanish. Given that I don't wake up first thing in the morning and run to the bathroom to take perfect selfies, I'm not really concerned with what strangers on the internet think of my BFP.
  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    If you have really big breasts what you have is a higher percentage of body fat. Same body fat with little itty ones is fat deposited elsewhere - and it doesn't look as good.

    Not necessarily.

    Some women with bigger breasts have more actual breast tissue. These are the women that can drop to a very low %BF and STILL maintain their breast size (or shrink very little). For those that don't ever drop to a low %BF, you can tell if the breasts are largely fat or largely breast tissue with a mammogram.