Body Composition

What is body composition?

This refers to the percentage of fat, bone, water, and muscle we have in our body. In other words, it’s our lean muscle versus our body fat.

This is a good gauge of your overall health and physical fitness. Excess bodyweight can add challenges to your life.

Obesity is a huge problem in our society. People who are obese are at major risk of heart disease and diabetes. Obesity causes undue pressure on our joints and creates poor posture. Also, people, who are obese, are limited in their flexibility and stamina making it difficult to perform daily tasks.

Improving your composition

Proper diet and exercise is the best remedy to improving your appearance. The sections on diet and exercise in this website will offer tips on healthy foods to eat and exercises to perform. However, before you begin a diet and exercise program know where you stand. Know your body mass index and more importantly your body fat percentage.

The body mass index calculates your body weight relative to your height. It is an easy way to assess your health and physical fitness. Unfortunately, its accuracy is questioned at times because it is “cookie cutter” in its approach. It assumes everyone with a given height should be within a certain weight range in spite of of their build and it does not calculate your body fat.

With body fat percentage the consensus is it’s a better gauge of your health and physical fitness. It is the total weight of your fat divided by your overall weight. This will give a more accurate measurement of how much fat you are carrying.