Knowing Your Ideal Body Weight
A high amount of body fat can lead to weight-related diseases and other health issues. Being underweight is also a health risk. Body Mass Index and waist circumference are screening tools to estimate weight status in relation to potential disease risk. However, Body Mass Index and waist circumference are not diagnostic tools for disease risks. A trained healthcare provider should perform other health assessments to evaluate disease risk and diagnose disease status.
What is the ideal weight?
How much you should weigh? The answer isn’t always as simple as looking at a chart.
Your ideal weight depends on a number of different factors, including:
frame size
fat and muscle composition
height
sex
other factors
Body mass index is one of the most popular ways to calculate an ideal weight range. Getting your current Body Mass Index is as easy as plugging your height and weight into a calculator.
A result between 18.5 and 24.9 means you’re in the “normal” weight range for your height. If your result is under 18.5, you’re considered underweight. Between 25 and 29.9 means you’re considered overweight. And if your number is 30 to 35 or more, you’re considered obese.
Body Mass Index isn’t always accurate, however, because it doesn’t account for factors like frame size and muscle composition.
Your Ideal Body Weight
Knowing your ideal body weight is a first step to take before you start macro counting or flexible dieting. This helps you to have realistic expectations and to establish a healthy goal weight.
Understanding your optimal weight can help you with the following aspects of dieting:
Gives you a baseline to use for building muscle.
Allows you to set realistic weight loss goals.
Prevents the thinking that weight loss is necessary when it isn’t.
Shows you a goal to strive for if you are underweight.
Helps with maintaining a healthy weight for your height.
Why Frame Size is Important
Other ideal body weight calculators don’t factor for frame size and this is an important factor in determining an ideal body weight for a person of your height.
The term frame size refers to the mass of your skeletal structure. Those with more bone mass will weigh more than people with less bone mass who are of similar height. However, this isn’t factoring for bone density.
Example:
A 5’6″ woman who has a large frame size should weigh between 139-143 pounds, whereas a 5’6″ woman with a small frame should weigh 124-128.
This feature is why our ideal body weight calculator provides the most accurate results possible and paints a more realistic picture of what your ideal body weight should be
Why People Weigh More or Less
You can look great and be healthy in a wide range of weights, but it is worth noting that being underweight is associated with poor health outcomes and higher mortality for some conditions, as is being far above the healthy Shows you a goal to strive for if you are underweight.
If your weight is above that of the ideal for your height on the charts, it is tempting to think that it is because you are lean but very muscular. This may be true in some cases, but most people usually weigh more because they have more body fat.
Very muscular people may have a higher body mass index while still having low body fat. Meanwhile, people who have lost muscle mass and replaced it with fat may appear to have a normal Body Mass Index when they actually have too much body fat and not enough muscle for good health outcomes.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends using both the body mass index and your waist circumference to determine whether you are at a healthy weight. A waist over 35 inches for non-pregnant women and over 40 inches for men indicates a higher risk of obesity-related conditions, according to the CDC.
How Ideal Weight Is Calculated
The traditional ideal weight calculation is essentially a rule of thumb rather than being based on health research or a comprehensive study of population averages.1
Women: Ideal Body Weight (in kilograms) = 49 kg + 1.7 kg for each inch over 5 feet
Men: Ideal Body Weight (in kilograms) = 52 + 1.9 kg per inch over 5 feet.
These equations were developed for use by doctors to calculate drug dosages. They tend to overestimate ideal weight at shorter heights and underestimate it at taller heights.1
However, a 2016 study found that the results correlate well with the body mass index of 21 for women and 22.5 for men, which is near the middle of the healthy body mass index range.The authors of the research suggest a different equation using body mass index.
The healthy BMI range is the same for men and women, so the results apply to both. The healthy normal weight range is a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. A body mass index of 22 is in the middle of that range.
Other Methods to Knowi Your Ideal Body Weight
There are several other methods you can use to hone in on how much you should weigh.
Waist Circumference
Another way to estimate your potential disease risk is to measure your waist circumference. Excessive abdominal fat may be serious because it places you at greater risk for developing obesity-related conditions, such as Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease. Your waistline may be telling you that you have a higher risk of developing obesity-related conditions, if you are:
A non-pregnant woman whose waist circumference is more than 35 inches
A man whose waist circumference is more than 40 inches
Waist circumference can be used as a screening tool but is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual. A trained healthcare provider should perform appropriate health assessments in order to evaluate an individual’s health status and risks.
Waist-to-hip ratio
The ratio of your waist circumference and hip circumference creates what’s called your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). This number shows you how much of your fat is stored in your lower body, which includes your waist, hips, and buttocks.
The doctor can help to figure out your waist-to-hip ratio.. If you’d like to do it at home yourself, follow these instructions:
Stand and breathe normally. Then breathe out and use a measuring tape to measure the inches around your natural waist, which is the smallest part above your belly button. This number is your waist circumference.
Then take your tape and measure around the largest part of your hips and buttocks. This number is your hip circumference.
Divide your waist circumference by your hip circumference to get your waist-to-hip ratio
A healthy ratio for females is 0.85 or less. For males, it’s 0.9 or less. A waist-to-hip ratio higher than 1 may indicate an increased risk of heart disease and related conditions for both males and females.
This chart provides more information about how to read your waist-to-hip ratio.
Health risk Females Males
low 0.80 or lower 0.95 or lower
moderate 0.81 to 0.85 0.96 to 1.0
high .86 or higher 1.0 or higher
This method does have its drawbacks, as well. It’s not always easy to record the most accurate measurements, especially if you’re measuring yourself.
Body composition varies for a number of reasons as well. You may have a skewed reading if you have muscular hips, for example.
There are people who won’t get accurate results with waist-to-hip ratio. This includes people who are shorter than 5-feet tall or who have a body mass index of 35 or higher. This method also isn’t recommended for children.
A high amount of body fat can lead to weight-related diseases and other health issues. Being underweight is also a health risk. Body Mass Index and waist circumference are screening tools to estimate weight status in relation to potential disease risk. However, Body Mass Index and waist circumference are not diagnostic tools for disease risks. A trained healthcare provider should perform other health assessments to evaluate disease risk and diagnose disease status.
How much you should weigh? The answer isn’t always as simple as looking at a chart.
Your ideal weight depends on a number of different factors, including:
frame size
fat and muscle composition
height
sex
other factors
Body mass index is one of the most popular ways to calculate an ideal weight range. Getting your current Body Mass Index is as easy as plugging your height and weight into a calculator.
A result between 18.5 and 24.9 means you’re in the “normal” weight range for your height. If your result is under 18.5, you’re considered underweight. Between 25 and 29.9 means you’re considered overweight. And if your number is 30 to 35 or more, you’re considered obese.
Body Mass Index isn’t always accurate, however, because it doesn’t account for factors like frame size and muscle composition.
Your Ideal Body Weight
Knowing your ideal body weight is a first step to take before you start macro counting or flexible dieting. This helps you to have realistic expectations and to establish a healthy goal weight.
Understanding your optimal weight can help you with the following aspects of dieting:
Gives you a baseline to use for building muscle.
Allows you to set realistic weight loss goals.
Prevents the thinking that weight loss is necessary when it isn’t.
Shows you a goal to strive for if you are underweight.
Helps with maintaining a healthy weight for your height.
Why Frame Size is Important
Other ideal body weight calculators don’t factor for frame size and this is an important factor in determining an ideal body weight for a person of your height.
The term frame size refers to the mass of your skeletal structure. Those with more bone mass will weigh more than people with less bone mass who are of similar height. However, this isn’t factoring for bone density.
Example:
A 5’6″ woman who has a large frame size should weigh between 139-143 pounds, whereas a 5’6″ woman with a small frame should weigh 124-128.
This feature is why our ideal body weight calculator provides the most accurate results possible and paints a more realistic picture of what your ideal body weight should be
Why People Weigh More or Less
You can look great and be healthy in a wide range of weights, but it is worth noting that being underweight is associated with poor health outcomes and higher mortality for some conditions, as is being far above the healthy Shows you a goal to strive for if you are underweight.
If your weight is above that of the ideal for your height on the charts, it is tempting to think that it is because you are lean but very muscular. This may be true in some cases, but most people usually weigh more because they have more body fat.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recommends using both the body mass index and your waist circumference to determine whether you are at a healthy weight. A waist over 35 inches for non-pregnant women and over 40 inches for men indicates a higher risk of obesity-related conditions, according to the CDC.
How Ideal Weight Is Calculated
The traditional ideal weight calculation is essentially a rule of thumb rather than being based on health research or a comprehensive study of population averages.1
Women: Ideal Body Weight (in kilograms) = 49 kg + 1.7 kg for each inch over 5 feet
Men: Ideal Body Weight (in kilograms) = 52 + 1.9 kg per inch over 5 feet.
These equations were developed for use by doctors to calculate drug dosages. They tend to overestimate ideal weight at shorter heights and underestimate it at taller heights.1
However, a 2016 study found that the results correlate well with the body mass index of 21 for women and 22.5 for men, which is near the middle of the healthy body mass index range.The authors of the research suggest a different equation using body mass index.
The healthy BMI range is the same for men and women, so the results apply to both. The healthy normal weight range is a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. A body mass index of 22 is in the middle of that range.
Other Methods to Knowi Your Ideal Body Weight
There are several other methods you can use to hone in on how much you should weigh.
Waist Circumference
Another way to estimate your potential disease risk is to measure your waist circumference. Excessive abdominal fat may be serious because it places you at greater risk for developing obesity-related conditions, such as Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, and coronary artery disease. Your waistline may be telling you that you have a higher risk of developing obesity-related conditions, if you are:
A non-pregnant woman whose waist circumference is more than 35 inches
A man whose waist circumference is more than 40 inches
Waist circumference can be used as a screening tool but is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual. A trained healthcare provider should perform appropriate health assessments in order to evaluate an individual’s health status and risks.
Waist-to-hip ratio
The ratio of your waist circumference and hip circumference creates what’s called your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). This number shows you how much of your fat is stored in your lower body, which includes your waist, hips, and buttocks.
The doctor can help to figure out your waist-to-hip ratio.. If you’d like to do it at home yourself, follow these instructions:
Stand and breathe normally. Then breathe out and use a measuring tape to measure the inches around your natural waist, which is the smallest part above your belly button. This number is your waist circumference.
Then take your tape and measure around the largest part of your hips and buttocks. This number is your hip circumference.
Divide your waist circumference by your hip circumference to get your waist-to-hip ratio
A healthy ratio for females is 0.85 or less. For males, it’s 0.9 or less. A waist-to-hip ratio higher than 1 may indicate an increased risk of heart disease and related conditions for both males and females.
This chart provides more information about how to read your waist-to-hip ratio.
Health risk Females Males
low 0.80 or lower 0.95 or lower
moderate 0.81 to 0.85 0.96 to 1.0
high .86 or higher 1.0 or higher
This method does have its drawbacks, as well. It’s not always easy to record the most accurate measurements, especially if you’re measuring yourself.
Body composition varies for a number of reasons as well. You may have a skewed reading if you have muscular hips, for example.
There are people who won’t get accurate results with waist-to-hip ratio. This includes people who are shorter than 5-feet tall or who have a body mass index of 35 or higher. This method also isn’t recommended for children.
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