About DEXA.

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, usually shortened to DEXA or DXA, is an imaging method that sends two low-dose X-ray beams through the body. Soft tissue and bone attenuate those beams differently, which lets software estimate fat mass, lean mass, and bone mineral. A whole-body composition scan is the measurement referenced on this site — not a hip or spine osteoporosis study, though the hardware is related.

DEXA is widely treated as one of the more reliable routine ways to estimate body-fat percentage. It is more repeatable than calipers or consumer bioimpedance scales, and it does not depend on an operator pinching a skin fold. It is not a perfect ground truth. Typical short-term variability is often cited in the range of about ±1–3 percentage points. Hydration, recent food, glycogen, the specific scanner model, and how the technician places the person on the table all move the number. Two scans a week apart can disagree without the person having gained or lost much tissue.

Visual guessing is less reliable still. Lighting, a pump, skin tone, muscle mass, and where a person stores fat change how “lean” a photo looks. A muscular man at 15% and a lightly muscled man at 15% do not resemble each other. The same is true for women, whose fat is more often stored at the hips and thighs. Shirt-on photos hide the midsection; flexed photos invent shadows. That is why this index only files posts that report a DEXA result, and why it shows the curator’s notes verbatim instead of rewriting them into marketing copy.

dexapics organizes those posts by sex and by whole body fat %: every scan from 12.0 to 12.9 sits on the 12% page, never rounded up, so a 12.4% scan lives in the 12% male or female gallery. Only rows marked as viewable are rendered. Some posts include a photo of the scan report; others only state the number. The cards mark that difference. The site does not host or copy the images; it links and, for Reddit, lazy-loads an embed when a card approaches the viewport.

Different machines and software versions do not always agree. A Hologic scan and a GE Lunar scan of the same person can differ by more than the day-to-day scatter on one device. Head-in versus head-out protocols, jewelry, and recent training can move a result by a point or two. That is why neighboring body fat % pages in this index can look alike, and why a single decimal should not be treated as more precise than the method. The exact percentage on each card is whatever the source post reported; the whole number is the page it files under.

Nothing here is medical advice, a diagnosis, or a recommendation to seek any particular body-fat percentage. DEXA has medical uses that this site does not address. There are no affiliate links on this page. If a listing is wrong or a poster wants it removed, use the contact address.