The US Navy Body Fat Percentage calculator uses a method involving equations developed at the Naval Health Research Center by Hodgdon and Beckett in 1984.

US Navy Body Fat % calculator is considered accurate to approximately 3–4% whereas with DEXA (another popular method) the individual error rates tend to hover around 5%, although some studies have shown error rates as high as 10%.

Moreover, the DEXA scan comes at the cost of using a machine and which includes the time and cost of getting to a machine and paying for using it whereas the US Navy method can be used anywhere including from home by measuring the circumference of required body parts and using an online calculator like above to get the body fat percentage.

The U.S. Navy implemented its current body composition assessment (BCA) program in 1982. The Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) has conducted several research studies in the past to find a more accurate, affordable, and/or time-efficient body fat estimation technique.

However, none of the NHRC studies resulted in changes to the Navy’s BCA program. The results of the study showed that using standalone DEXA measurements would increase the estimated percent body fat for males and decrease the estimated percent body fat for females as compared with the Navy’s current method.

The US Navy’s method simplifies the measurement procedure, provides Navy personnel with more accurate information in terms of their health risk, as well as maintain estimated percent body fat accuracy without any associated increases in terms of cost, training, or administration time.