Fat Calipers :

There are many methods for measuring the health of individual. There are also many factors of which to measure to measure different components of health. A popular measurement that is of interest to people is the percentage of fat that makes up body composition. Commonly used by bodybuilders, fat calipers are a gauge that measures the percentage of fat on the body.

Unlike methods such as BMI, or body mass index, which is based solely on height, weight, and gender; fat calipers are an actual tool that measures the fat on the body by pinching the skin and gripping fat. Fat caliper look similar to a compass used in junior high math and is calibrated in millimeters. The numbers that are derived from the measurement are put into an equation and percentage of body fat is determined.

While this is the most cost effective and efficient way to measure body fat percentage of an individual, there are some faults with the system. These drawbacks include the fact that measurements need to be taken in the same exact location each time in order to get a true measurement. This can be difficult to achieve and extra measurement should be taken to pinpoint exactly where to take the measurement.

Women should have more body fat than men to maintain proper hormone levels as well as carry out child birth. The minimum level of body fat for females should be around 20 percent and males the number is around 17 percent. While there are exceptions for this level, this is on average the norm.

If one is fit, they should not take a diet pill or weight pills to lose weight to achieve a lower percentage of body fat. It is human biological nature to preserve some fat on the body for organ function. Even in cases of extreme starvation a percentage of fat will be present on the body.