Body composition

What is body composition? Briefly, it's the amount, percentage and distribution of water, lipids, proteins and minerals that are in our organism. As maybe you know, we are made of molecules, mainly molecules of water ( 60% ), lipids ( 20% ),  proteins ( 15% ) and minerals ( 5% ).

At the molecular level, we can consider human organism divided into two compartments:

1. Fat-free mass (FFM) : water, proteins, minerals, essential lipids.
2. Fat mass ( triglycerides in adipose tissue).

We can estimate the composition of both compartments. This is useful to know our nutritional status in cases of illness or growth disorders, because we'll be able to adapt a diet based not only in our weight.