What is a healthy body fat percentage?
General reference ranges (US Navy method categories)
- Men, fitness range
- about 14 to 17%
- Men, average and healthy
- about 18 to 24%
- Women, fitness range
- about 21 to 24%
- Women, average and healthy
- about 25 to 31%
Opens the Body Fat Estimator. Free, no account needed.
Healthy body fat is a range, not a single target, and it is genuinely different for men and women. A number that reads as lean for a man would be dangerously low for a woman, because women carry more essential fat by biology.
The reference ranges above are a good general map. For men, the mid-teens to low-twenties covers fit to average and healthy. For women, add roughly seven to ten points across the board: low-twenties reads as fit, and the mid-twenties to low-thirties is average and healthy. Below the essential-fat floor, around 6 percent for men and 14 for women, is not a goal to chase. Your body needs that fat to function.
A couple of honest notes. These estimators, including the tape-measure method in the tool, are approximations, not lab-grade readings. What they are genuinely good for is tracking direction over time, whether your number is trending the way you want, not nailing a precise figure. And leaner is not automatically healthier past a point. Chasing very low body fat has real costs to energy, mood, and hormones, and stage-lean is not a place to live.
Where your healthy range sits also depends on your goals and how you feel and perform, which is a bigger picture than one percentage.
Estimate your own body fat with a tape measure in the tool to see where you land.
Not sure where to start?
The home page calculator gives you your real numbers in one place: the calories to aim at, a macro split, and a few things to do this week. Free, no account needed to see it.
Find where to startIf you would rather someone build this around your life instead of guessing, my 1:1 coaching is there. The free tools get you most of the way.