Body Fat Percentage

Body fat percentage is the proportion of your total body weight made up of fat tissue. Everything else, which is muscle, bone, organs and water, is your lean body mass, and the two add up to your weight.

It is the measurement people usually mean when they say they want to know their body composition, because it separates the two things weight alone cannot. Losing five kilograms of fat while gaining two of muscle shows up here and barely shows up on the scale.

Healthy ranges differ by sex, because women carry essential fat that men do not. The figures usually quoted are roughly 10 to 20 percent for men and 18 to 28 percent for women, with athletes lower, and the ranges widen with age.

What it is not

A reading from a smart scale is not a measurement; it is an estimate from bioelectrical impedance, which passes a small current through your body and infers composition from the resistance. It is sensitive to how hydrated you are, so the same person can read two percentage points apart morning and evening. Weigh yourself under the same conditions each time and read the trend rather than the number.

Where you see it in FitnessSyncer

Body fat percentage arrives from any connected scale that reports it, and is charted with the rest of your body composition on your Dashboard. You can set a goal against it.