Essential fat is necessary for bodily functions and cannot be used for energy. It is found throughout the body and is a building material for tissues. Body composition testing takes into account total body fat percentage, which includes essential and stored fat. Even the leanest athletes have some subcutaneous fat, and healthy body fat ranges vary by gender and activity level.
Essential fat is the body fat or adipose tissue a person has that is essential for a number of bodily functions, from the formation of reproductive tissue to the absorption of vitamins consumed in food. It differs from subcutaneous body fat, or body fat that is stored under the skin for future energy use, in that essential fat generally cannot be used for energy except in cases of severe malnutrition. Taken together, essential and stored fat when divided into pounds of a person’s total body weight constitutes that person’s total body fat percentage. In women, this fat represents approximately nine to 12 percent of total body weight, while in men it represents approximately three to five percent.
Distributed in all systems of the body, essential fat is found in almost all parts of the body. It is found in the bone marrow, forming the membranous sheaths that surround individual nerves, as well as those that cover the brain, distributed throughout the muscle tissue, and lining the walls of organs ranging from the heart and lungs to the intestines. . Additionally, this type of fat is an important component of reproductive tissue, particularly in women who carry it in their breast and uterine tissue. This explains the extra weight in fat stored in women’s bodies.
Essential fat is distinguished by its role in the constitution of body structures and not by its participation in metabolic processes. In other words, it is not used as an energy source when the body’s caloric expenditure exceeds its caloric intake, as body fat is stored. Instead, it is used as a kind of building material for many of the body’s tissues. As such, this fat is not burned during weight loss like subcutaneous fat, and is considered to be not only healthy, but necessary for the body to function.
Body composition testing techniques such as caliper testing, underwater weighing, and more modern techniques such as dual energy X-ray absorptiometry take into account total body fat percentage as a portion of total body weight. For example, if a woman’s total fat percentage is 25 percent and 9 to 12 percent comes from essential fat, the remaining 13 to 16 percent comes from stored body fat. If she weighs 140 pounds (63.5 kilograms), 35 pounds (15.88 kilograms) comes from fat with between 13-17 of those pounds (5.7-7.7 kilograms) contributed by essential fat.
Considering this, it is impossible to have zero body fat. Even the leanest athletes, with women having as little as 14 percent total body fat and men just 6 percent, will typically have a few pounds of subcutaneous fat in addition to their essential fat percentage. The recommended range of total body fat for healthy women is typically 18 to 24 percent and for men 10 to 17 percent, with athletes getting in at 14 to 18 percent and six to 10 percent, respectively.
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