Thicket At present, mainstream clinical and public health fields generally agree that the healthy body fat rate range for adult men aged 18-65 is between 8% and 22%. It is normal for the standards of different institutions to fluctuate by 1-2 percentage points. The core judgment principle is that body fat levels will not bring additional risks of metabolic diseases.
A while ago, I helped Zhou, a 35-year-old from the same department, read the physical examination report. His body fat was measured at 21%. He has a very obvious belly caused by sitting for a long time, but his blood lipids, uric acid, and liver function are all within the normal range. He can still play basketball twice a week, and he can run five kilometers without being out of breath. It is completely healthy, and there is no need to rush to apply for fat-brushing strategies.
Nowadays, many people's understanding of body fat rate is deeply influenced by the fitness circle. They often say that "men with body fat exceeding 15% are fat." In fact, this is an aesthetic standard and is not the same thing as a health standard. The body fat rate where you can see clear abdominal muscles is probably below 15%, which is indeed within the healthy range, but it does not mean that it is unhealthy if it is above 15%. On the other hand, there are also people who blindly pursue low body fat. Last year, I met a junior boy who was preparing to compete in a college bodybuilding competition. He spent two months to increase his body fat from 16% to 7%. During that time, he told me that he caught colds at every turn, couldn't concentrate in class, and even had less morning erections. After the competition, he slowly adjusted his body fat back to 11% before returning to normal. Too low body fat will interfere with endocrine system and lower immunity, which will be harmful to health.
The solid fat is like our body's own "buffer reserve tank". If it is too little, the ability to withstand risks will be poor, and it will not be able to bear the cold, and recovery will be slow when injured. If you are over 60 years old and your metabolic level is much lower than that of young people, as long as your body fat does not exceed 24% and you have no related underlying diseases, you are still considered healthy. There is no need to compare yourself to the standards of a twenty-year-old boy.
By the way, the bioimpedance lipid scale we usually use at home has an error of 2-3 percentage points due to the amount of water we drink, whether we have just finished exercising or even whether we have held in our urine. If you really want to measure accurately, you should first refer to the hospital's DEXA scan results. Don't worry about it for a long time just because the number on the scale jumps by 0.5. After all, judging health is never just based on body fat. As long as the physical examination indicators are normal, the exercise ability is online, and the energy is sufficient every day, even if it fluctuates by 1 or 2 percentage points above the so-called standard value, there will be no problem at all.
