I spent today finishing my week’s work for a freelance project and reading posts on body fat percentage. Finally, I ended the day with a short post that looks at Jane Austen and staying home.
Body Fat Percentage
I read an article by BuiltLean that shows 5 ways to measure body fat percentage. You can feasibly use 3 of the methods at home, but you cannot feasibly use the last 2 methods without incurring hefty costs and requiring advanced equipment.
Measurement Methods
- Skin Fold Caliper. For this method, pinch your body fat in a certain area and measure the thickness with a skin caliper. Compare your measurement to a table with averages by weight, sex, and age. There are different standards for using calipers. Some tests require you to measure body fat on one body part, others can require measurements on up to seven or more body parts.
- Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA). For this method, step on a BIA scale (or hold a BIA hand tool). I like the look of this Omron scale, but I don’t own it, have never used it, and am not affiliated with Omron.
- Anthropometric. Use a cloth measuring tape to measure the circumference of specific areas of your body. Plug those measurements into a calculator such as the US Navy method calculator or this calculator on BMI-calculator.net (here’s the formula for the latter calculator). The areas measured vary by sex.
- Hydrostatic weighing. This method requires you to be submerged in a specialized tank of water. It costs money, takes significantly more time than any of the “at-home” methods, and can be completed at some research labs, universities, and hospitals. It’s considered one of the “gold standards” for measuring body composition.
- DEXA scan. This method uses a body scanner and may be available at research labs, universities, and hospitals. Another “Gold Standard” for measuring body composition, it is time-intensive and costs several hundred dollars.
Conclusion on Body Fat Percentage
I’ve used the anthropometric method since I began tracking my body fat percentage on a weekly basis for my February 2020 dietary experiment. See the launch post and summary post, if you’re curious. The US Navy method calculator for the anthropometric method requires you to measure your height, weight, age, sex, abdomen (just about the navel/belly button), and neck. You should relax when measuring. Flexing causes inaccurate measurements.
Finally, I also perused an article by BuiltLean that provides two tables with ideal body fat percentages. The first table is based on sex and body fat percentage. The second table is based on sex, body fat percentage, and age.
Staying Home with Jane Austen
After work, I read a short article by Raisa Bruner in Time that draws similarities between folks self-quarantining nowadays and the main characters of Jane Austen’s novels.
Basically, if the worst thing the coronavirus pandemic is doing to you is making you stay home, consider yourself lucky and try to enjoy your time at home. Acknowledge the emotions you’re experiencing because of this and don’t beat yourself up if you feel negative emotions. But, also acknowledge your privilege. This moment in time is probably exponentially more difficult for many more people.
The featured image is by Siora Photography on Unsplash.
