Healthy bmi but high body fat?

[blackrabbitwhiterabbit]

My smart watch says I'm made up of 33 body fat which sounds a lot! But my BMI says I'm slap bang in the middle of healthy weight? Is one of these wrong, do you think?

Fwiw I'm 5'7 and 9 stone 9.

Depending on your age, that body fat percentage may be in an ok range.
I highly doubt the accuracy of body fat from a watch tbh and from reviews of home BF scales, they seem v variable too.

No it can happen.
If you think of it as bones, water, fat, muscle.
Someone with lower bone density will be lighter but not healthier.
2 people same weight one can have more muscle less fat and the other more fat, less muscle.
So you can be skinny fat.

Thank you both. Obvs I meant 33 percent !

So maybe I am slim with too much fat on the inside.

Yep: skinny fat. Me too

People can be slim but be unhealthy and have a lot of internal fat. BMI is a guide , it doesn't take into account muscle mass or bone density for example so its not always the most reliable tool to use.

I'm the opposite , work out and have a lot of muscle, but my BMI is "overweight" and I have a lower body fat %

I wouldn't pay too much attention. I used to be 32% fat at around 9 stone and at 15 I'm 40% fat. I became obsessed with this figure and my BMI and developed disordered eating habits and gained a shit load. Don't be me

If you look good and are a healthy weight, it makes sense that you will have a healthy amount of fat. I follow a lot of fitness influencers and one analysed their fat recently. The female looks like she has no fat, a lean machine but the professional fat analysis said she was 32%. He was more than expected too.

Don't worry.

Same. BMI is 22.9, body fat is 32.7%.

Thanks all. I feel like I'm a bit wobbly around the middle, though, and I do eat a load of crap.

Its not an exact science anyway, for example, if you are fit and athletic but have a big chest, that could tip your bmi into the overweight category..

The at home methods available to measure body fat are not very accurate, that includes sport watches and scales that measure body composition. The accurate measuring methods such as hydrostatic weighting are usually not available to us mere mortals.

I think the US Navy estimation method is quite good because it takes into account circumferences of places where a) people normally store fat (waist, hips, neck) b) the body built - if someone has bigger bones they would have thicker neck. There are online calculators with the US Navy formula.

You can also do a simple visual assessment - curl in a chair and count the folds on your belly. The more folds you have the less belly fat.

Yes use the US navy it’s based on more information. I use this. On my gym scales my body fat has hardly changed despite losing 4.5stone!