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For men, that means a body fat percentage of less than 21 percent, and for women it's less than 31 percent. These are the age-adjusted body fat percentile recommendations health pros use: Men:
Women tend to have more body fat than men, even if they have the same BMI. Body fat can also differ between races, ethnicities and ages — older folks tend to have more body fat than younger ...
One easy way to gauge if you have a healthy amount of belly fat is by measuring waist circumference, which is generally considered 35 inches or less for most women and 40 inches or less for most men.
But it is important to recognise that women need at least 9% more body fat than men to live a normal healthy life. [2] Data from the 2003–2006 NHANES survey showed that fewer than 10% of American adults had a "normal" body fat percentage (defined as 5–20% for men and 8–30% for women). [3]
Women are more likely than men to be obese, where the rate of obesity in women doubled from 8% to 14% between 1980 and 2008. [113] Being overweight as a child has become an increasingly important statistic as an indicator for later development of obesity and non-infectious diseases such as cardiovascular disease . [ 104 ]
Body composition in general is hypothesized to help explain the existence of metabolically healthy obesity—the metabolically healthy obese are often found to have low amounts of ectopic fat (fat stored in tissues other than adipose tissue) despite having overall fat mass equivalent in weight to obese people with metabolic syndrome.
Studies have shown that the amount of belly fat is an important determinant that correlates with the risk of chronic diseases because it is a sign of adipose tissue accumulation around the organs.
Adipose tissue (also known as body fat or simply fat) is a loose connective tissue composed mostly of adipocytes. [1] [2] It also contains the stromal vascular fraction (SVF) of cells including preadipocytes, fibroblasts, vascular endothelial cells and a variety of immune cells such as adipose tissue macrophages.