With obesity rates on the rise, more and more people are starting to look into how much fat they are carrying on their body and ways to reduce it. There are various ways you can have your body fat measurement taken, from using skin callipers to bio-electrical impedance measures to underwater weighing, they all will tell you approximately what percentage of your body is composed of fat tissue and what percentage of your body is composed of lean muscle mass.

But when does excess fat become a problem? Are there certain categories where you should start taking more drastic measures? Most definitely.

The general recommendation for a healthy body fat range is for women to be 30% or under and for men to be 20% or under. Women need to have a higher body fat percentage because they will have a higher amount of essential fat on their bodies. This is fat that is directly needed in order to help her produce a child and maintain healthy hormone levels. When she dips below her essential body fat ranges (12%), she can start seeing issues with menstruation and a loss of bone tissue (potentially risking osteoporosis).

Some people, who would fall into the extremely obese category may even see body fat ranges that go into the 50 to 70% of total body mass or above. This is very dangerous and at this point clinical action will likely need to be taken.

Body fat can basically be divided up into two different categories, first there is subcutaneous fat and then there is visceral fat. Subcutaneous fat will be fat that resides on the outside of the body more or less, just under the skin. Visceral fat however is fat that is located deeper within the body, underneath the organs particularly around the waist and is much more related to disease conditions and health risks. These would include hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance and glucose intolerance, hypertriglyceridemia and reduced high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations.

Visceral fat also greatly increases the chances that you will be at risk for developing diabetes as well as ischemic heart diseases. In order to help you determine if you are in the safe range, the general waist girth guideline as a measurement of obesity is a waist of greater than 100 cm for those less than forty and a waist of greater than 90 cm for those over forty. If you are above those measurements, your visceral fat levels are likely very high and you should be taking action right now to reduce it.

Generally the android pattern of obesity, where fat accumulates around the abdominal area is much more dangerous than the gynoid pattern of obesity, in which the majority of fat is located in the gluteal and femoral regions.

So if you are overweight or are reaching obesity levels, you need to strongly consider what your bodyfat distribution pattern looks like and what type of fat you are carrying. It is really essential that you look at reducing body fat levels, not only because generally it makes life a lot harder but also because you are putting yourself at a severe health risk. If you have trouble reducing fat even while going and sticking with a diet, it may be smart to talk to your doctor about this as there are some conditions where there are malfunctions in certain hormonal levels or glands in the body that help to regulate the metabolism and fat balance.