Maintaining a healthy body fat percentage can help a woman avoid a number of health problems. It also can help her feel attractive and boost her energy. Keeping track of body fat trumps using a scale or calculating body mass index when assessing health risk, according to the Mayo Clinic. A woman who falls into a normal weight or BMI range, in fact, still might have too much body fat. Pop culture calls this "skinny-fat," while the clinic terms it "normal weight obesity."
Significance
Reducing body fat generally is recognized as a superior method for tracking weight loss to just keeping track of pounds pared from the body or weight in general. In fact, it's possible to be "normal" weight and still be too fat. According to a 2008 Mayo Clinic study, more than 50 percent of adults with normal body weight in the United States have body fat percentages that are considered high--for women, this is greater than 30 percent. This finding debunks the generally held belief that maintaining a normal body weight will guard against health risks and disorders.
Warning
High body fat can mean high levels of circulating blood fats that make people prone to metabolic syndrome, even for people of normal weight. This syndrome often leads to heart disease and diabetes, according to the Mayo Clinic. Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death and disability in the U.S., and women are not an exception from this statistic. High body fat can increase risk for a host of other health problems, including hypertension, osteoarthritis, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, respiratory problems and some forms of cancer, including endometrial, breast and colon cancers.
Identification
Your body fat percentage tells you how much fat your body contains. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds and have 20 percent body fat, your body consists of 30 pounds of fat and 120 pounds of lean mass, which includes muscle, organ tissue, bone, blood and everything else. This is different from the body mass index, which is a number derived from a person's weight and height. In the past, BMI was thought to be a reliable indicator of how much body fat a person has, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Mayo Clinic study, however, concluded that it might be better to focus public health measures aimed at reducing the occurrence of heart disease on body fat percentage instead.
Categories
There are a couple of healthy body fat categories for women. For women ages 20 to 39, athletic women can have 14 to 20 percent body fat, and fit females will have body fat that falls into the 21 to 24 percent range. A generally acceptable amount of body fat for a woman is 25 to 31 percent, with anything over that considered obese, according to HealthCheck Systems. For women ages 40 to 59, the fit through acceptable range is 23 to 33 percent body fat. For women ages 60 to 79, it's 24 to 35 percent, according to Aurora Health Care of Wisconsin. Women have higher body fat percentages in these categories than men do. For example, in the 20 to 39 age range, male athletes can have 6 to 13 percent body fat and fit males 14 to 17 percent; the acceptable range is 18 to 25 percent.
Function
It is essential for a woman to have a minimum of 10 to 12 percent body fat. Fat actually is needed for several bodily functions. It helps to regulate body temperature, serves as the main form of energy storage in the body and cushions and insulates organs and tissues. Women have more body fat because theirs includes portions in the breasts, hips and pelvis necessary for reproductive function, according to nationally known nutritionist Andrew Weil, M.D. When a woman's body fat dips too low, her energy level declines along with her exercise performance, and the lack of fat interferes with her menstrual cycle, possibly even stopping it. This puts a woman in a temporarily infertile state. This is not a good form of birth control, Weil cautions, because a woman's hormonal functions benefit more than reproductive health. Bone health also depends on having enough female reproductive hormone estrogen circulating in the body.
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