Body Fat

Growing up, my dad always had one of those Body Mass Index charts on the fridge. I guess it was supposed to remind me that I'm not built like a normal human being. As if every clothing store in the country didn't do that already.

It doesn't really make much sense though. It didn't diversify by gender, and it really doesn't have anything to do with one's actual body fat content. A person could be 5'8" and 180 pounds of pure muscle and they're BMI would be 27.4; overweight. They would technically have the same BMI as a 5'8" person who was 180 pounds of flab.

So I was reading a post on neatorama the other day called Hacks to Help You Stay Healthy and at the bottom it linked to a site with a more accurate body fat test. It's the tape measure test. As opposed to just height and weight, it asks for both as well as gender and age. After that one is to measure one's waist, hips, flexed forearm, and wrist. I entered the applicable info: 5'6", 112 pounds, male, 28 years old. Then 26" waist, 27" hips, 9.5" forearm, and 6.5" wrist.

This was my result:

Damn, that puts me in the same category as top athletes. Granted there are discrepancies between ethnicities and skinny/fit people, etc. They do go into that on the first page. So really, I could be anywhere up to 9% or so.

Curious? Take it yourself.