How to Read Your DEXA Results

A DEXA report can look dense the first time you see it: columns of numbers, a body diagram, regional breakdowns. Here’s what each part actually means. At Wayne DEXA, a physician reads your scan and reviews it with you, so you won’t be left to interpret it alone, but it helps to know what you’re looking at.

Body fat percentage. This is the share of your total mass that’s fat tissue. DEXA measures it directly rather than estimating it, and it’s more informative than BMI because it distinguishes fat from muscle. The single number matters less than where it sits for you and how it changes over time.

Lean mass: whole-body and regional. DEXA reports lean (non-fat, non-bone) tissue for your whole body and broken down by region: each arm, each leg, and your trunk. That regional detail is where DEXA is especially useful: it shows left-to-right symmetry and lets you see whether you’re maintaining or building muscle in specific areas.

Visceral fat. This is the deeper fat stored around the organs in your abdomen, reported separately from the fat just under your skin. It matters more than almost any other number on your report: visceral fat is metabolically active tissue, and higher levels are strongly associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, risks that can be elevated even in people who look lean and carry a normal weight on the scale. Because it sits deep around the organs, it’s invisible to a scale, a tape measure, or a mirror; DEXA is one of the few tools that can actually quantify it, which is what makes seeing this number so valuable. Tracking it over time is one of the most useful things a DEXA scan does.

Bone density and your T-score. DEXA also measures bone mineral density, usually reported as a T-score: how your bone density compares to that of a healthy young adult. By the World Health Organization’s definition, a T-score of −1.0 or above is normal, between −1.0 and −2.5 is low bone mass (osteopenia), and −2.5 or below meets the criterion for osteoporosis. A T-score is a measurement, not a diagnosis on its own. Interpreting it is a clinical judgment your physician makes with the rest of your picture.

The most important idea: it’s a baseline. A single DEXA scan is a snapshot. Its real value shows up when you scan again months later and can see what actually changed (fat, muscle, or bone) instead of guessing from the bathroom scale. That’s why we present your numbers plainly, without framing any result as a grade to pass or fail.