Question

If an athlete weighs $131$ lb and has $15.0\% $ body fat by weight, how many pounds of fat does the athlete's body contain ?

Answer 1

Hint: This problem is nothing but a problem of percentage, read the question again, it is asking for the pounds of body fat the athlete has if it is given that he has a weight of $131$ lb and also has $15.0\% $ body fat by weight. So simply calculate his fat in pounds by finding the $15.0\% $ of his body weight.

Complete step by step answer:
 In order to find the pounds of fat the athlete’s body contains, we will first read the question and collect the information it is giving to us for solving the question.According to the question, the weight of the athlete is $131$ lb and he has a body fat of $15.0\% $ by weight, which means that his body has $15.0\% $ of his body weight as fat and we have to calculate that amount of the body fat.

Here understanding the terms, “$15.0\% $ body fat by weight”, percent or $\% $ means per $100$, so we have to multiply $\dfrac{{15}}{{100}}$ to his body weight to find $15.0\% $ body fat by weight or his body fat, multiplying below
$15\% \;{\text{of}}\;131 = \dfrac{{15}}{{100}} \times 131 \\
\Rightarrow 15\% \;{\text{of}}\;131= \dfrac{{1965}}{{100}} \\
\therefore 15\% \;{\text{of}}\;131 = 19.65 \\ $
Therefore the athlete has $19.65$ lb or pounds of body fat.

Note:When solving this type of problems, your step should be to read the question carefully and collect all the data the question is giving to you, because in this type of word problems, it is said that you have already solved the half problem if you have understood the question.