| Chest fold | mm | |
| Shoulder fold | mm | |
| Axillary fold | mm | |
| Triceps fold | mm | |
| Abdominal fold | mm | |
| Hip fold | mm | |
| Upper leg fold | mm | |
| Age | years | |
| Weight | kg | |
| Gender | ||
| Body Fat | % | |
| Fat mass | kg |
There are several methods to measure your body fat. One of them uses a caliper to determine the thickness of different skinfolds. The thickness of theses skinfolds can be feed into a calculator like the one above. If you do not have a skinfold caliper you can also use any caliper you have ore even a ruler. As a consequence the measurement gets more inexact. If done correctly the measurement with the skinfold caliper is one of the more accurate methods to determine body fat.
Further methods to determine your body fat are body fat scales, the DXA-method or simply measuring girth with a measuring tape.
Body fat scales often cost below 20€. But they are not very accurate, because they measure an electric resistance, which, of course, depends on the body fat percentage, but also on the water content in the body.
A very accurate method to determine the body fat is the DXA-method (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry). Roentgen rays (X-rays) determine the composition of the body. This can be done for 70€ at med22, for example.
Measuring girth with a measuring tape is very inaccurate.
The body fat percentage which is seen as "normal" depends on gender and age. Women have a much higher body fat percentage than men who usually have 10% to 20% body fat. Whereas women very often have a body fat percentage of 20% to 30%.
Professional athletes often have a very low percentage of body fat. Professional road cyclists, for example, can have a body fat percentage of 3% to 5%.
