Estimation of body fat from skinfold thickness

The fat content of the human body has physiological and medical importance. It may influence morbidity and mortality, it may affect the ability to wit hstand exposure to cold and starvation, and it may alter the effectiveness of drugs and anaesthetics. It may also be the cause of reduced insulin sens itivity in some population groups. Thus, the measurement of the total body fat provides useful information. A computer program, written in quick basic language, was developed, to compute the equivalent fat content, as a perce ntage of body-weight, for a range of values for the sum of the four skinfol ds, of Egyptian males and females of different ages. This is based on a tab le developed by Durnin and Womersley. The computer program was run using sk infolds of Egyptian males and females of different ages. Satisfactory resul ts were obtained. This program can be used to calculate the total body fat with relative ease and reasonable accuracy. This should make it of common u se in many fields of medicine, physiology, nutrition and anthropology, part icularly in population studies comprising a large number of subjects. (C) 2 001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.