Body composition

The body composition evaluation is a quantification of the most important structural components of the body: muscular mass, bone mass, fat mass. Since 1921 when Matiegka, an anthropologist, described a 4 components system to evaluate body composition, a hundred articles have been published in relation to the way that these components should be measured. The objective of this review is to obtain a simple massive method, easy to reach by the population that leads to a self-evaluation in the future so that no further information is needed. For this purposes, the following components have to be distinguished: fat mass and macra mass.

Fat mass is composed of basic fat, the one needed for the normal physiologic functioning of the body and is placed in different organs, central nervous system and bone-narrow; women has 3 times more basic fat than men distributed in the mammary glands, pelvis and tights.
Fat mass is also composed by stored fat, which is kept as energetic reserve in the fat tissue, at a visceral subcutaneous level. The distribution percentage of stored fat for men and women is almost the same.

Macra fat is composed of the total body fat minus the stored fat and counts for the muscular, bone, skin, viscera fat and basic fat and it represents the minimum weigh a person can reach without risk for his health. Exercise decreases body weigh and the fat lost is associated to the total energetic needs. Most part of the weigh loss during an aerobic exercise program starts with the stored fat. The macra fat can either stay the same or increase.