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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Pounds vs. Inches







Your body composition is another assessment tool you can use to determine the state of your health. Like the body mass index, or BMI, your body fat composition is an estimate. You are likely to see the physical manifestation of your body fat on your waistline. Abdominal fat is especially dangerous from a health perspective. It puts added pressure on your heart because of weight gain and increases your risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Body Fat Composition

Online health sites, such as Health Central, provide calculators for estimating your pounds of body fat. You will need to know your current weight and height as well as measurements for your hips, calves, thighs and wrists. The calculator will give you the percent of body fat. Take this figure and multiply it by your weight. For example, if you are 160 pounds with 10 percent body fat, your pounds of fat will be 16 pounds, with 144 pounds of lean body mass. The normal range for women is between 10 percent and 31 percent, with 21 percent to 24 percent indicating a person in good physical fitness, according to the American Council on Exercise.





Source: Tiffany Wright, MD, LiveStrong.com

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