Where does your bodyfat rank?

What your result means

The big number is how many people of your sex and age group had less bodyfat than you when the CDC scanned about 13,000 US adults by DEXA between 1999 and 2004. If it says 30 in 100, you're leaner than about 70 in 100 of them. The middle half of US men aged 20 to 39 ran from 21.2 to 30.4%, and of women the same age from 32.5 to 42.9%.

A rank tells you where you sit among real people, and the ACE band and the healthy range tell you what's good for you. They can disagree. A woman of 34 at 26% is in the average band on the ACE chart, inside the healthy range for her age, and leaner than about 95 in 100 US women her age. Bodyfat climbs with age on average, about 5 points from the 20s and 30s to the 60s and 70s, so the same number ranks leaner as you get older.

How to do it once, free

1. Get a number. A DEXA scan is what the table used. Without one, the tape method gives a range in two minutes, and a home scale's number works as a rough guide.
2. Put in your age and sex. The rank compares you with your own group, since women carry more essential fat and everyone gains some with age.
3. Read the three lines together. The rank, the band and the healthy range for your age. If you're over the range, calories to lose gives you a date. If you're inside it, your waist and the trend matter more than chasing a lower rank.
4. Check again in three months, measured the same way, since a scale or a tape can be a few points off on any one day.

Every number from 12 to 30 has its own page, for men and women, and the whole chart has the percentiles by age.