Body Composition
Body composition consists of fat and nonfat components. Fat components are called fat mass or body fat percentage. The nonfat components are called lean body mass. To understand body composition it would be best to understand these terms. Body fat percentage is defined as proportional amount of fat in the body based on the person’s total weight, including both essential fat and storage fat. Lean body mass is defined as body weight without body fat. Both of these factors together help you figure out the recommended body weight. Recommended body weight is defined as body weight at which there seems to be no harm to human health, also called healthy weight. Knowing what your recommended body weight is can help one understand if they are obese or at risk for health problems. Men and women both need a certain amount of essential fat to operate healthy. Men's essential body fat is 3% and women's essential fat is 12%.
assessing body composition:
There are different techniques to assess body composition. These tests include hydrostatic or underwater weighing, air displacement, skinfold thickness, girth measurements, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.
There are different techniques to assess body composition. These tests include hydrostatic or underwater weighing, air displacement, skinfold thickness, girth measurements, and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.
Hydrostatic weighing involves considerable amount of time, skill, space, and equipment that must be administered by will train technician. It is defined as underwater technique to assess body composition, and considered the most accurate of the body composition assessment techniques
The Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry is a method to assess body composition that is used most frequently in research and buy medical facilities. It is a method to assess body composition that uses very low-dose beams of x-ray energy to measure total body fat mass, fat distribution patterns, and bone density.
The air displacement is a technique that assesses body composition by calculating the body volume from the air replaced by individual sitting inside a small chamber. The chamber is called a bod pod which is a commercial name of the equipment used to assess body composition to their displacement technique.
The skin-fold thickness technique assesses body composition by measuring a double thickness of skin at a specific body site. The test is done with the aid of pressure calipers. You can do a three site pinch test or a seven site pinch test. The three site procedure is the most common used technique. For men the three sites are the chest, abdomen, and thigh. The three sites for women are the triceps, suprailium, and thigh.
Another important component is the body mass index. The body mass index is a technique to determine thinness and excessive fatness that incorporates height and weight to estimate critical fat values at which the risk for disease increases. This is very accurate to determine where someone health stands for according to their body fat percentage.