Body Fat Percentage - Most Accurate??

I've noticed most doing the military calc jump right in to the place to enter info, and don't read the info there.

And this makes a huge difference.

Note: Men should take their waist measurement at the navel. Women should measure the natural waist circumference at the point of minimal abdominal circumference, usually located about halfway between the navel and the lower end of the sternum (breast bone).

Water displacement is the most accurate I understand. The new sonar type should be pretty good as well.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/556733-body-fat

This ^^^

There is also the electronic one you hold out infront of you, but not the most accurate, but very common these days.
...They may harras you to train w/them for the next 3 mts., but may be worth it. You want to measure your inches and body fat to see your true progress vs. just the scale. ...

I think the trainers at the gym count on you having no idea what these numbers mean.

After I'd been on line looking at a couple of different chart for BODY FAT PERCENTAGE GOALS.
I asked a trainer at my gym to test me with the electronic thing you hold out in front of you

He entered my stats 5'7" 143 lbs 50 y.o. I measured 28.2%
He said he wanted to get me down to 19%

I'm well within the health range for my height, weight and age on all the different charts I checked out on line.
Really, I'd like to firm up a bit and get to someplace between 24%-26%, but there is no cause for panic.

The calipers can be had from amazon or other health sites. Then their are gobs or websites with multiple methods of calculations to plug in your measurements. Some use 3 measurements and others use 5 and 6. I don't have any where near by that can do a Water displacement test. The calipers are pretty close

I had my body fat done at the gym caliper method and it was closest to the original calculator. I LOVE fat2fitradio.com and I LOVE their philosophy. It makes so much sense...Lose weight the easy eay, which is just to eat like the thinner person you want to become and do it slowly. LOVE that! Best of luck in your journey.

I double checked my measurements, and again used the calculators and still got that crazy range. Oh well! C'est la vie

I will try getting it done at a gym, the only problem is there are no gyms close to me (none within a 1.5hr drive! besides one little one that only has the equipment - no trained fitness staff) When I travel again, I'll make an appointment with a gym and have it done.

Thanks everyone

Our county community center will actually do it for about $10-15. Check in to that too. Several city community centers have gyms too, wouldn't be surprised if they did too.

All three of mine were crazy different too. I have an hourglass shape. One was 27%, one was 41.2% and the other 28% so I thought I should be somewhere in the middle of them say around 35. I asked heybales (smart guy here on mfp:) and he told me that usually your body fat % is close to your waist measurement. My waist is 35 inches so right on what I was thinking.

Hrm, I wonder if this varies by height.

Here's the really weird thing as to what the calc's use as measurements to do estimate on.
http://www.gymgoal.com/dtool_fat.html

Military/Navy - gender, height, neck, waist (women minimum), hips (women only)

Navy women - gender, weight, height, neck, forearm, waist, hips, wrist

Covert - gender, wrist (men & women), forearm (men), abdomen (men), hip (men & women), waist (women), thigh (women), calf (women)

Regarding the Covert method,

"How Accurate Is This Body Fat Test?

This tape-measure test is used to estimate your percent body fat. It is usually quite accurate-- so if a man got 17 percent from this test, he could expect his true percent body fat to be anywhere between 15 and 19 percent.

For some people, however, the results of the tape measure test may not come so close to their true percent body fat. People who are very, very fit can get numbers 3 to 5 percent higher than their true percent body fat. Because they don't have a lot of fat inside their muscles, very fit people may be lower in body fat than this tape measure test indicates.

Conversely, if a person is skinny but not fit, this body fat test may yield a number 3 to 5 percent lower than his or her true percent body fat. Though they look thin, unfit skinny people really have more than the usual amount of fat inside their muscles, which you can't see from the outside.

So, what's the bottom line? For many people, this tape measure test is quite accurate, it puts you in control, it can be done frequently and it costs nothing."

BodPod or Water displacement are the way to go, I think.

I'm doing the bodpod on Friday. Can't wait!

How did your BodPod compare?

Mine was 0.6% higher than the measurement method avg between Covert and Navy methods.

Considering PodBod says their's is 2% accurate either direction, or 4% total, that encompassed both Covert and Navy method separately, and made that avg almost nail it.

So probably won't waste $35 on that again. But probably would have been nice at beginning of journey to know how far off the measuring method was, and then just kept doing that.

It changed my BMR calc by Katch comp method by whole 25 calories.

I like the Covert Bailey one, because (if I'm not mistaken) it takes the greatest number of circumference measurements into consideration. Also, between the three of them, the Covert Bailey puts me at ~21% which looks about right to me when I compare myself to photos of women with different percentages of body fat.

I have ordered calipers, which I have used successfully in the past. Looking forward to how they compare.

Covert for Women uses:
age, hips, thigh, calf, wrist

Military/Navy for Women uses:
waist, hips, neck, height

So they use mainly different ones but still 4 measurements each, except for hips is the same. Hence the reason an average between them is probably more accurate.

Calipers being another 5% possible accurate method in the hands of a skilled person using the 7-site method (which you can't hit some by yourself), it should be averaged with those other measurement methods.

Bunch of 5% methods better than 1.

Covert for Women uses:
age, hips, thigh, calf, wrist

Covert Bailey uses 7 measurements for women:

age
wrist
waist
hip
thigh
calf
forearm

No, sites that do it, along with my spreadsheet, ask for all those, but they are not all used in the calculation.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Five-Methods-to-Calculate-your-Body-Fat-Percentage-by-Using-a-Tape-Measure