What is a Healthy Body-Fat Pecentage?

If you follow me on Facebook you saw my post yesterday about an incident that happened at the gym. A fellow male trainer was weighing and measuring his new female client and doing her body assessment. Upon appearance it was apparent to me that this was woman was very thin despite her baggy sweatpants and over-sized tee. Her assessment revealed what I had assessed with my eyes was true. She was a about my height, 5'5" and weighted around 95 pounds. While this is very small it was not really her weight that concerned me. It was what followed. Her body-fat percentage was about 7%, this is very low (dangerously low) for a female especially one who is not an athlete. My response as a trainer would have been to ask questions about her family history, "Are most of the women in her family thin?" "Does she struggle to keep on weight?" "What is her history of weight like?" I would have also asked that she keep a food journal to assess that she is consuming enough calories, especially since she will be beginning a new training routine. Also, to make sure there is not an underlying problem that I need to know about. However, what I heard next shocked me! He said to her, "7% is good. I would be ok down to 5%." This was not ok!!! As I said 7% is incredibly low for a woman almost dangerously low. 5% is unacceptable. Even in the fitness industry where women strive to reach lower body-fat levels for competition, we know that body-fat below 8% sustained for a long period of time is incredibly dangerous for a woman's reproductive system as well as organ and brain function. As a trainer, I know that those words to someone who has any kind of unhealthy relationship with food or their body could send them into a tailspin. It is for this reason that I actually do not take body-fat and weigh my clients unless they ask me to. I want them to focus on health not numbers. One of the 1st things I do with my clients is tell them to lose the scale and pull out their skinny jeans.

So what is a healthy body-fat range? For those who do like to keep track of numbers it is important to know what is a healthy range. The chart I use most often is from the American Council of Exercise. As you can see it is important for women to stay above 10-13% any thing below that and women run the risk of Amenorrhoea (losing their period) and can cause issues of infertility.  Most of the women I train I am more than happy to see them in the fitness range which is also where I remain most of the year now.  For my fitness gals we do stay in the athlete range so that it is easier to lean out come competition time.  However, not even for my competitors do we discuss body fat unless it needs to be.  We go entirely by what they look like in their suit as we get closer to stage day.  At the end of the day it is about being comfortable with who we are and being healthy. 

P.S. Do not worry I did speak up and say something to him and his client about how scarey 7% for women was and that 12% is needed just to sustain normal body function.