This is the percentage of your body that is fatty tissue. The body needs fat cells to store energy, but researchers at the National Institutes of Health report that people with high percentages of body fat have an increased risk of diabetes, elevated blood cholesterol, heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Generally, women should fall in the 18 to 25 percent range.
There are several ways of measuring body fat, such as using skin fold calipers to find the amount of fat on the triceps or thighs. But reports from several government agencies say that it’s not always the amount of fat that matters, but where the fat is.