Body fat — just hearing the phrase might bring to mind belly fat, love handles, or stubborn weight that’s tough to lose. This is why you’ll find thousands of articles with exercise tips or diet secrets that promise to lower your body fat percentage — “Lose 10 pounds of body fat in 30 days!” But is it really that simple?

The truth is, body fat plays a more complex role in your health than most people realize. It’s not just something to burn off — your body actually needs some fat to function properly. That’s why understanding a healthy body fat percentage is so important. 

In this guide, we’ll break down what body fat really is, how it affects your health, and how to maintain a healthy body fat percentage — for long-term wellness, not just short-term weight loss.

What should your body fat percentage be?

You might be asking yourself: what should my body fat percentage be? Or more specifically, what’s considered healthy or ideal for your age, sex, and fitness level?

While there is no universally agreed-upon standard for ideal body fat percentage values, a few respected organizations have their own recommended ranges for what qualifies as a healthy body fat percentage:

Healthy body fat range for men

A common target range for male body fat percentage is 10–20%. This is a good baseline for overall health and athletic performance.

Here’s how different organizations define it:

• Goal-setting range: 10–20%

• American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM): 10–22%

• American Council on Exercise (ACE): Average of 21%

Staying within this range supports cardiovascular health, hormone balance, and metabolic efficiency — especially when paired with regular exercise.

Healthy body fat range for women

For women, a healthy body fat percentage typically falls between 18–28%, depending on individual goals and activity levels.

According to key sources:

• Goal-setting range: 18–28%

• ACSM: 20–32%

• ACE: Average of 28%

If you’re figuring out the right body composition goal specific to you, these ranges are excellent starting points.

Healthy Body Fat Percentage by Age

Your age plays a major role in determining what qualifies as a healthy body fat percentage. As we get older, our metabolism naturally slows down, hormonal levels shift, and we tend to lose lean muscle mass — all of which contribute to an increase in body fat over time, even if our weight stays the same.

These changes are normal and expected, but keeping your body fat within a healthy range can still have a big impact on your energy levels, heart health, mobility, and disease risk.

The following age-based body fat percentage ranges are general recommendations. They offer a helpful benchmark if you’re wondering what a healthy body fat percentage should be for your age:

Body Fat Percentage by Fitness Level

Your activity level and training habits significantly influence your body fat percentage. Athletes and highly active individuals tend to carry more lean muscle and less fat, while those with lower activity levels may have higher body fat — even if their weight is similar.

It’s important to understand that two people of the same weight can have very different body compositions based on how much muscle versus fat they carry.  

Use the chart below to estimate where you fall based on your current activity level and how that aligns with your health or training goals:

What is Body Fat?

It seems like an obvious question: what is body fat? You’re probably thinking that it’s “the fat you can see and point at.” Yes, that’s true — but that’s only half the picture.

Body fat, formally known as adipose tissue, can be broken down into smaller components, and to have a better understanding of how to manage your body fat, you first need to know how to talk about it.  

Essential Fat

First off, there’s essential fat. It plays a significant role in your overall health and as its name implies, it is essential for survival. That is why a goal of 1 percent of body fat is neither realistic nor healthy.

Essential fat is present in organs, bone marrow, nerve cells, and the brain, and helps you:

• Maintain sufficient energy reserves by acting as a metabolic fuel

• Conserve body heat by acting as an insulator

• Protect your internal organs and joints by acting as a soft, fluffy cushion

• Reproduce; adipose tissue (fat cells) and fertility are heavily linked to each other

Typical essential fat levels are:

• Around 3% for men

• 8–12% for women

The higher women’s body fat percentage is due to additional reproductive and hormonal needs.

Storage Fat

Storage fat is what your body accumulates when you consume more energy than you burn. This includes both the fat you can see and the fat you can’t — and while it’s often seen as “bad,” it also serves important purposes:

• Acts as a long-term energy reserve during fasting, illness, or exertion

• Provides insulation and regulates body temperature

• Cushions muscles, bones, and organs, reducing injury risk

• Stores fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) for future use

That said, too much storage fat, especially around the abdomen, can increase your risk for chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and inflammation-related disorders.

Types of Storage Fat: Subcutaneous vs. Visceral

Storage fat can be further divided into two distinct types: subcutaneous fat and visceral fat. Although they’re both components of storage fat, they’re quite different from each other. So different in fact, that these two types of adipose tissue have different gene expressions. This means they are literally different and function independently from each other.

What Is Subcutaneous Fat?

Subcutaneous fat is the fat stored just under your skin. It’s the most visible and the kind you can pinch — in areas like your arms, hips, thighs, and belly.

While it does provide insulation and cushioning, excess subcutaneous fat can still lead to health risks, particularly when combined with poor metabolic health or inactivity. However, it’s generally considered less harmful than visceral fat.

What Is Visceral Fat?

Visceral fat lies deeper in the body, surrounding vital organs in your abdominal cavity — including your liver, pancreas, and intestines. Health professionals recognize visceral fat as a far more dangerous health threat than subcutaneous fat, and it’s considered a strong, independent predictor of all-cause mortality in men and women.

Unlike subcutaneous fat, visceral fat is metabolically active, meaning it functions like an organ by secreting inflammatory proteins known as cytokines. These chemicals:

• Disrupt insulin function

• Promote systemic inflammation

• Increase risk for conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and atherosclerosis—conditions that characterize metabolic syndrome.

Genetics may influence how you store fat in the body. Hereditary influences aside, the following are a few factors have been shown to increase your likelihood of increasing visceral fat accumulation:

• Excessive alcohol consumption

• Sleep deprivation

• Inadequate aerobic (cardio) activity. This systematic review of previous studies on the subject found out that aerobic training of moderate or high intensity has the highest potential to reduce visceral fat among overweight individuals.

How Do You Calculate Body Fat?

There are several ways to measure body fat percentage, and each method has its advantages and disadvantages:

Skinfold Caliper Test

The skinfold test via fat calipers was once considered the standard in measuring body fat. 

However, the usefulness of skinfold calipers has been called into question because, among other concerns, they only account for or report subcutaneous adipose tissue.

DEXA Scan (Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry)

DEXA is widely regarded as one of the most accurate methods for measuring body fat. It uses low-dose X-ray beams to scan the body and differentiate between fat tissue, lean muscle, and bone mineral content. One of its key advantages is its ability to distinguish between subcutaneous and visceral fat, offering a detailed picture of body composition. However, DEXA scans are expensive, require clinical equipment, and are generally not practical for routine or frequent use.

Hydrostatic Weighing

Hydrostatic weighing involves a subject being lowered into a water tank until they are completely submerged, at which point they must expel all the air from their lungs and are then weighed. This method is based on the principle that fat is less dense than muscle. While accurate, this method is highly impractical, very expensive, and uncomfortable.

Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)

Another method of body fat measurement that’s rapidly evolving and gaining popularity is bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). BIA measures impedance by applying alternating low-level electrical currents through the water in the body. 

Though some BIA models in the past had questionable accuracy, the technology has advanced to the extent that the most cutting-edge devices offer accuracy on par with gold standard methods like DEXA but superior affordability, convenience, and repeatability. 

How Do You Gain Body Fat?

Body fat is gained when your body stores more energy (calories) than it uses. This caloric surplus leads to the storage of excess energy as fat — particularly if you’re not engaging in enough physical activity to offset it.  

In most cases, fat gain is the result of a combination of factors: consuming energy-dense foods, not moving enough, and losing muscle mass due to inactivity. These factors can slow your metabolism and shift your body composition — increasing fat while reducing lean muscle.

But there’s more to the story than just eating too much or exercising too little. Human biology, modern environments, and lifestyle patterns all contribute to how fat is stored:

The Role of Lifestyle and Muscle Loss

From an evolutionary perspective, storing body fat was once a survival advantage. As noted in Scientific American, psychologist Jesse Bering describes how early humans benefited from storing fat to survive periods of famine. Fat was energy insurance — the more you had, the more likely you were to endure food shortages.

But modern life has changed that dynamic. Industrialization and advances in food production have created environments where high-calorie foods are easy to access, and physical activity is no longer required for survival. We live in a world of calorie abundance, convenience, and chronic stress — all of which promote fat storage. 

As a result, many people gain fat not because of internal biological failures, but because of how their bodies respond to external cues like easy access to food, irregular sleep, and sedentary behavior.

What if you have a “slow” metabolism?

Many people blame fat gain on having a slow metabolism. While there is indeed a connection between metabolism and body composition, you don’t necessarily carry a higher body fat percentage because you’re a slow burner. The more common explanation is a gradual increase in calorie intake and a decline in physical activity over time.

Metabolism doesn’t slow dramatically with age by itself — it slows because people tend to lose muscle and move less as they get older. These are modifiable factors. Regular physical activity and resistance training can help maintain muscle mass and support a healthier body composition.

How to Lower Your Body Fat Percentage

Lowering your body fat percentage comes down to a fundamental principle: you must use more energy than you take in. While that may sound simple — “eat less, move more” — putting it into practice requires consistency, strategy, and patience.

Crash diets, extreme workouts, or short-term “fixes” don’t create sustainable results. Instead, long-term fat loss comes from moderate and manageable lifestyle changes.  

What it Means to Eat Less

Reducing your calorie intake — also known as creating a caloric deficit — is the foundation of any effective fat loss plan. A consistent energy deficit over time forces your body to draw from stored fat for fuel.

However, eating less does not mean starving yourself or cutting out entire food groups. The goal is to reduce excess calories while maintaining nutritional quality. Prioritize whole foods, lean protein, healthy fats, and high-fiber carbohydrates. Focusing on nutrient-dense meals rather than simply lowering portions helps support energy, metabolism, and muscle maintenance during fat loss.

What It Means to Move More

Exercise enhances fat loss efforts, but not always in the way people expect. Physical activity alone doesn’t guarantee weight loss, especially if dietary habits remain unchanged. However, combining exercise with dietary changes has consistently been shown to produce better long-term results.

Physical activity offers additional benefits that support fat loss indirectly. It improves sleep quality, increases energy expenditure, preserves lean muscle mass, and reduces stress — all of which are tied to better metabolic health.

When it comes to targeting visceral fat, research suggests that aerobic exercise (such as walking, running, cycling, or swimming) is particularly effective. Multiple studies and meta-analyses confirm that combining cardio with dietary changes produces more meaningful reductions in body fat than diet alone.

So Are You Really Losing Fat?

How do you know that you’re on the right track to lower your body fat percentage?

Monitoring the scale? Not really.

Changes in body weight aren’t exactly an accurate reflection of your progress. A pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle or water in your body.

Take a body composition analysis to figure out your lean body mass and fat mass. Just make sure that it distinguishes fat mass between visceral fat and subcutaneous fat. The device may even tell you your Basal Metabolic Rate, a key number to learning your metabolism.

The Bottom Line

There’s a lot to know about body fat. The interplay between caloric imbalance, nutrition, metabolism, exercise regimens…it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin. Plus, once you factor in the role of genetics and environment on obesity, losing body fat can seem like an overwhelming challenge that you’re powerless to achieve on your own.

That shouldn’t be the message you take away here. Knowledge is power, but it shouldn’t 

over-complicate the challenge at hand. The reality is, for the vast majority of people, fat loss and maintaining a healthy body fat percentage is something you can have a significant degree of control over. Find a diet and exercise regimen that helps you control their levels and fits your current lifestyle.

It’s also important to look beyond the surface. While external fat may be visible, the fat you can’t see — especially visceral fat — can carry serious health risks. That’s why tools like body composition analysis are so valuable. They give you a clearer picture of what’s actually happening inside your body, far beyond what the scale or BMI alone can tell you.

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Kyjean Tomboc is a nurse turned freelance healthcare copywriter and UX researcher.  After experimenting with going paleo and vegetarian, she realized that it all boils down to eating real food.