Healthy Body Fat Percentage In Women

When most women step onto the scale, the number they see makes them think of fat, whether gained or lost. But a woman's body is made up of more than fat: muscle, bone, skin, water and other components also make up your weight. Many women are now looking past weight and thinness and asking what percentage of body fat is healthy.

Functions

Your body fat provides energy, protects your organs from trauma, helps regulate your temperature, and makes chemicals to support your immune system. Since body fat is necessary for your reproductive system to work, women generally have more body fat than men. Fat is a natural and necessary part of your body, but you can become unhealthy when your body fat percentage is too high. When your body fat percentage is too low, it can be equally unhealthy.

Too High

Having a body fat percentage that is too high can increase your risk of problems like diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers. In a study printed in 1999 in the "Journal of the American College of Nutrition," Dr. Ram Singh showed that subjects with a higher percentage of body fat had an increased risk for heart disease, even if they were not obese. Dr. Singh calculated that at a body fat percentage of 38 percent, a woman's risk for disease would begin to greatly increase.

Too Low

A body fat percentage that is too low can be unhealthy for women. A woman's ability to have a period and become pregnant is directly related to having a healthy percentage of body fat. According to a study by Rose Frisch, published in the June 1987 issue of "Human Reproduction," when a woman's body fat drops below 16 percent, her periods can become irregular or stop completely. This can also increase a woman's risk for osteoporosis and permanently damage her ability to have children.

Healthy

Your healthy body fat percentage is between the two extremes. Dympna Gallagher, in a study published in the March 2000 issue of "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition," associated a body fat of 21 percent to 31 percent with optimum health in women. This range represents the women who had the fewest problems from either a too high or too low body fat percentage. Your healthy body fat percentage will be in there somewhere.

Considerations

Many women think that a lower percent body fat is healthier, but you should remember that this may not be true. If you are worried that your percentage of body fat may be unhealthy, your doctor can perform tests to determine your health, and recommend safe ways to change your body fat percentage. Remember that although having a body fat of 21 percent to 31 percent may be healthiest for a woman, obsessing about your body is never healthy.