Body Fat Percentage For Males

The presence and location of body fat is a more accurate way of determining your risk for serious diseases and premature death than the more common ways of measuring obesity. The average male body fat percentage is about half the average female body fat percentage, but their fat is more often dangerous abdominal fat. If you're concerned about your body fat, you should try to reduce the size of your waist and consider various ways of measuring body fat rather than relying on your scale.

Significance

Higher body fat levels were "well established" by the early 1900s as the primary reason that people deemed overweight by insurance companies were more likely to die earlier and have diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, according to "Slate" magazine's "Beyond BMI" article. The weight-for-
height and body mass index tables later used by doctors to measure who is overweight are easy, but often inaccurate, proxies for determining body fat, according to the article.

Warning

Your risk of serious diseases and early death increases when your body fat percentage is outside the ideal range, according to "An Invitation to Health." The ideal body fat percentage for males is 7 to 17 percent for 20- to 29-year-olds, 12 to 21 percent for 30- to 39-year-olds, 14 to 23 percent for 40- to 49-year-olds, 16 to 24 percent for 50- to 59-year-olds and 17 to 25 percent for anyone who is 60 and older, according to The American College of Sports Medicine.

Location

Men are more likely to die early because of obesity-related diseases than women although the average man's body fat percentage is 15 percent and the average woman's body fat percentage is 27 percent. That is because males' excess body fat is more apt to be in their abdomens rather than their buttocks and thighs. A male is more apt to have too much body fat if his waist-to-hip circumference ratio is more than 0.95, according to "The Well Adult" book.

Inaccurate Measurements

Weight-for-height and BMI tables are inaccurate because they don't distinguish between fat and muscle, "Beyond BMI" reports. The average man's muscle mass percentage is about twice as much as a woman's. Athletic men often have high BMIs because of "increased muscularity rather than increased body fatness," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC also reports that 32.2 percent of men were obese in 2008.

Accurate Measurements

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry could replace hydrostatic (underwater) weighing as the "gold standard" for measuring body fat percentage, according to "An Invitation to Health." The 10- to 20-minute DXA test uses X-rays to figure out whether weight is skeletal or soft tissue. The complex underwater weighing process is based on the fact that water's density is more than fat's and less than muscle's so fatter people "displace less water." The skinfold test, which uses calipers, is too dependent on technicians' skills to be accurate, according to "An Invitation to Health."