Body Fat Calculator
This calculator uses data from 12,140 DEXA scans.
Why this estimate is sharper than the rest.
Three things make our number different from every other body fat calculator on the internet.
Real ground truth
Every other online calculator runs the U.S. Navy formula or a Jackson–Pollock equation — math built in the 1970s and 80s from samples of a few hundred mostly-young, mostly-male subjects. Ours is regressed against 12,140 modern DEXA scans from BodyStats clients.
Two models, your choice
Basic uses age, sex, height, weight. Enhanced adds six lifestyle inputs — training volume, activity level, calorie goal, protein focus, eating out, alcohol — to tighten the range from ±10% down toward ±8.5%.
Retrained every night
The math gets sharper as new scans land in our database. There’s no “final coefficients.” The model you used today is different from yesterday’s, and a little better.
Eight thousand scans in. The math gets sharper every night.
What body fat percentage actually means.
Body fat percentage is the share of your total weight that’s fat tissue — not muscle, bone, organs, or water. It’s a far better signal than BMI because two people at the same weight can carry wildly different amounts of muscle.
The category band on your result reflects general athletic and clinical reference ranges. Athletes and people with high muscle mass routinely sit in the lower bands; perimenopausal women and men over 50 often sit higher without health implication.
- EssentialThe minimum your body needs to function. Below this is a medical concern. 2–6% for men, 10–14% for women.
- AthleteTypical of competitive endurance and physique athletes. 6–14% / 14–21%.
- FitVisible muscle definition, low metabolic risk. 14–18% / 21–25%.
- HealthyThe middle of the bell curve for North American adults. 18–25% / 25–32%.
- ElevatedApproaching the threshold where cardiometabolic risk starts climbing. 25–32% / 32–38%.
- HighAssociated with elevated cardiometabolic risk — a useful signal to act on, not a diagnosis.
What a calculator can’t see.
Even with our enhanced model, an estimate is still an estimate. Here’s what it’s blind to.
- Muscle vs fatIt can’t tell muscle from fat. Two people at 180 lbs and 5′10″ get the same estimate even if one is a powerlifter and the other has never trained.
- Where fat sitsVisceral fat — the metabolically dangerous kind around your organs — is invisible to any tape measure or formula. Only DEXA imaging can find it.
- You vs. averageThe further your body is from our dataset’s middle, the wider the error bars. The model assumes you look like a typical scanned client.
- Change over timeA 1–2% body fat shift over three months of training is below the noise floor of any estimate. DEXA catches it down to a tenth of a percent.
What a DEXA scan actually measures.
DEXA (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) is the same technology hospitals use to measure bone density. Seven minutes lying still on a table gives a full-body breakdown that no estimate can match.
- Body fat %To a tenth of a percent — not an estimate.
- RegionalLean and fat mass in each arm, leg, and your torso, separately. Detect asymmetries.
- Bone densityBone mineral density with osteoporosis risk flagged.
- Visceral fatThe dangerous fat around your organs, isolated and quantified.
- ComparableA full-body scan you can compare side-by-side with any future scan.
Available in Vancouver and Toronto, with mobile service across both cities. From $99.
The honest disclaimers.
Not medical advice. This calculator is an educational tool. It is not medical advice and shouldn’t be used to diagnose or treat any condition. Talk to a qualified clinician for medical guidance.
Estimate accuracy. Estimates carry a typical error of ±8 to ±10 percentage points at 95% confidence depending on which fields you complete. The number you see is an educated guess, not a measurement.
No guarantee. Body composition responds to dozens of variables we can’t see from a few inputs. No calculator can predict your exact result on a DEXA scanner — only a DEXA scan can.
Stop estimating. Start measuring.
Seven minutes, $99, and you walk out with the same data professional athletes pay hundreds for. Vancouver, Toronto, or we come to you.
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