There's a way you can test your body fat percentage online. All you need is a cloth tape to measure different parts of your body. The test tells you how much fat you have and how much muscle you have. The test is supposed to be quite accurate (within a couple of percentage points either way) except for very fit people who can get up to 5% higher number for their body fat than what they actually have (because they have much more muscle than the typical person) and very skinny but unfit people may show 5% less body fat than they actually have because "though they look thin, unfit skinny people really have more than the usual amount of fat inside their muscles, which you can't see from the outside."
The most valuable aspect of taking this test is doing it over time. If you plan to start exercising, you will see noticeable changes in the measurements over time.
Try the body fat percent test here.
The average American man has 22% of body fat. The average American female has 32%. But these are not healthy percentages.
A healthy normal body fat differs for different people. According to the makers of this test, healthy percentage of body fat would be 15% for a Caucasian male and 22% for a Caucasian female. Whereas it would be only 12% for an African-American male and 19 percent for an African-American female. Asians have the highest 'healthy ratio' at 18 and 25 percent for males and females. The difference is due to the bone frames having significantly different weights on average. Asians are much more likely to have porous bones that don't weigh as much relative to other races.
I've never heard this type of distinction before. Someone please tell me if this is complete bunk.
