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A high whole-body fat percentage is associated with increased mortality (Padwal et al., 2016).
Body Mass Index (BMI) commonly used to estimate the whole-body fat percentage. A BMI ≥30 is currently
used to define obesity. A recent study proposed an alternative anthropometric linear equation, which is
more accurate than BMI on identifying individuals with obesity - confidence intervals: 95% for women and
96.2% for men (Woolcott & Bergman, 2018). The study evaluated the performance of fat mass
estimation among Mexican-Americans, European Americans and African-Americans.
The relative fat mass (RFM) calculation uses waist circumference, height and sex; the sex value is 0
for men and 1 for women. It is suitable for adults 20 years of age and older.
RFM Formula: 64 - (20 * height / waist circumference) + (12 * sex)
Length unit: metre.
Please note that DXA cut-points for obesity diagnosis used in the table. To date, there is no
consensus for the definition of obesity based on body fat percentage (Ho-Pham & Oreopoulos, 2011).
| Risk |
Female |
Male |
| Obese |
equal or above 33.9% |
equal or above 22.8% |
Although validated on a database of over 12K adults, RFM is limited the population studied.
See also: Measuring your waist
References
2016, Padwal, R., Leslie, W. D., Lix, L. M. & Majumdar, S. R. Relationship
Among Body Fat Percentage, Body Mass Index, and All-Cause Mortality: A Cohort Study. Ann Intern
Med 164, 532–541, https://doi.org/10.7326/M15-1181.
20 July 2018, Woolcott O. & Bergman R., Relative fat mass (RFM) as a new estimator of whole-body fat
percentage ─ A cross-sectional study in American adult individuals, retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326520238_Relative_fat_mass_RFM_as_a_new_estimator_of_whole-body_fat_percentage_A_cross-sectional_study_in_American_adult_individuals
2011, Ho-Pham, L. T., Campbell, L. V. & Nguyen, T. V. More on body fat cutoff points. Mayo
Clin Proc 86, 584, https://doi.org/10.4065/mcp.2011.0097
2011, Oreopoulos, A., Lavie, C. J., Snitker, S. & Romero-Corral, A. More on body fat cutoff
points–Reply–I. Mayo Clin Proc 86, 584–585, https://doi.org/10.4065/mcp.2011.0097
