No one much likes talking about fat … but the truth is we ALL have some and we all need it to survive… it’s biology.
And ladies (don’t shoot the messenger!), we need a little more. That’s because our bodies can do amazing and clever things that blokes can’t do… like grow little people inside us.
Indulge us while we get a bit scientific for a moment…
The truth about body fat
Body fat can be divided into two categories: Essential fat and storage (non-essential) fat.
As its name suggests, we need essential fat for normal and healthy functioning. We store essential fat in small amounts in our bone marrow, organs, central nervous system and muscles.
Essential Fat
For the boys, essential fat accounts for approximately 3% of body weight.
However, we lucky ladies need a higher percentage of essential fat… about 12%. This includes gender-specific fat found in the breasts, pelvis, hips and thighs which are important for normal reproductive function.
Storage fat or non-essential fat
Storage (non-essential) fat on the other hand is the type of fat we accumulate under the skin, in certain specific areas inside your body, and in your muscles.
It does include some deep fat which protects our internal organs from injury, but it brings back some gender equity with men and women both equally susceptible to storage fat. And this is the fat we are all so keen to blast into oblivion!
So what's the healthy range for fat?
Here are the guidelines we use to assess healthy ranges of body fat for our clients.
We hope this helps explain why the values slide a little higher along the scale for ladies.
It’s also why we can never achieve 0% body fat… or live to talk about it.
Got questions? Drop us an email at info@physiquescience.com.au.
Or book your scan NOW and find out your DEXA health.