FitDexHow much should I weigh for my height
5 min readAuthor: Doğan Varkan
Height and weight are two numbers; the range counted as healthy is a band. This page shows where the band comes from, why it widens on taller bodies, which single measurement beats it, and how to choose your own point inside it.
Height does not give you one weight
The question gets asked as “how much should I weigh”, but what comes out of a height is not a single figure. It is a band with two ends. Its source is the range of body mass index counted as healthy, 18.5 to 24.9.
| Height | Healthy range | Width of the band |
|---|---|---|
| 155 cm | 44.4 – 59.8 kg | 15.4 kg |
| 165 cm | 50.4 – 67.8 kg | 17.4 kg |
| 175 cm | 56.7 – 76.3 kg | 19.6 kg |
| 185 cm | 63.3 – 85.2 kg | 21.9 kg |
What stands out is not the band but its width: at 175 centimetres 19.6 kilograms sit between the two ends, close to a quarter of a person’s body weight, and the whole of it passes under the same label of healthy. A calculator that hands you one number is really handing you a point it chose inside that band.
The band widens with height. That is the formula dividing weight by height squared.
The band is not a clinical measurement
The formula behind the range was not born in medicine. Adolphe Quetelet divided weight by the square of height in 1832 while trying to describe the average man; his purpose was to characterise the spread of a population, not to assess an individual. The thresholds we use today came later, out of the mortality tables of mid-century life insurance companies.
The square itself is contested. A human body grows in three dimensions rather than two as height increases, so a division by the square makes tall bodies look heavier than they are and short bodies lighter; the mathematician Nick Trefethen argued in 2013 that the exponent should sit nearer 2.5 than 2.
In the field the consequence is this: someone of 190 centimetres slips off the top of the band into “overweight” more easily than they should, while someone of 155 stays inside “normal” more easily than they should. The formula describes a crowd, not a person.
Same height, same weight, two different bodies
Picture two people at 175 centimetres and 80 kilograms. One carries 18% body fat, the other 30%. Their lean masses work out at 65.6 and 56.0 kilograms, a difference of 9.6 kilograms of muscle, bone and water. The index gives both the same number: 26.1.
The error runs the other way too. A body sitting in the middle of the band, raising no alarm on the scale but low in muscle and high in fat, passes the same calculation with a label of normal, while its metabolic markers can be worse than those of a muscular body at the top of the band.
How to work out your muscle percentage is a separate article. The point here is simpler: two numbers made of height and weight say nothing about what the weight is made of.
If you want one number, use waist to height
Waist circumference divided by height does the job better than the height and weight pair, and the rule fits in one sentence: keep your waist under half your height. At 175 centimetres that means 87.5 centimetres. At 165 it means 82.5.
Its advantage sits in two places. What it measures is abdominal fat, and abdominal fat is where the link with metabolic risk is strongest. Because it scales to height, it also runs on the same threshold for short and tall bodies and for women and men alike.
Taking the measurement is no harder than standing on a scale. Put the tape on bare skin at the narrowest point between the bottom of your ribs and the top of your hip bone, breathe out normally, and do not pull your stomach in.
The thresholds are not the same everywhere
The limits of 18.5 and 25 came out of data gathered in populations of European descent, yet body fat percentage and metabolic risk at the same index value vary from population to population. The World Health Organization recorded this in 2004 and defined 23 and 27.5 as additional public health action points for populations of Asian descent.
This is not a separate health standard. It is the same risk starting at a different number. The familiar limit of 25 is best read as a warning line rather than a wall.
Even the height it rests on is not fixed
The whole band rests on one height measurement, and that measurement is less stable than you think. The discs in your spine compress through the day and take 1 to 2 centimetres with them, so a height measured in the evening comes out shorter than the same height measured in the morning. After forty, roughly 1 centimetre goes permanently every decade.
The arithmetic is not trivial: at 175 centimetres the top of the band moves about 0.9 kilograms for every centimetre, so using a height measured twenty years ago shifts your band 2 to 3 kilograms upward and leaves you believing you have more room than you do.
Measure in the morning, barefoot, heels against the wall. Once a year is enough.
Your history predicts better than any equation
There is one piece of data no equation holds: which weight you have carried before, for how long, and how hard it was. If there is a weight you held for a year without constantly counting, that number tells you more than any formula’s output, because written into it are not only your physiology but your meals, your job, your sleep and how much you move.
The band tells you where healthy is. Your history tells you what you can hold. When the two do not coincide, the target sits somewhere between them.
If your history sits well above the band, the answer is not to aim at the bottom end. The top of the band is inside the band, and arriving there beats setting off for the bottom and stopping halfway.
The ideal weight calculator returns the band for your height with both ends showing, rather than imposing a single number. Where your current weight falls inside it comes from the BMI calculator. If what that weight is made of is the question, the body fat calculator measures that side.
ideal weightbmibody measurements
Run the numbers from this guide yourself
- Ideal weight calculatorWork out the healthy weight range for your height. We don't hand you a single "ideal weight" number — because there isn't one. You get the range, where you sit in it, and which end fits you.
- BMI calculatorEnter your height and weight to see your body mass index, which category it falls in and the healthy weight range for your height. A body fat estimate comes with it — it says what BMI alone cannot.
- Body fat calculatorEstimate your body fat percentage and lean mass from height, weight, age and sex. We don't ask for a tape measure — and we explain why, along with the margin of error.
Related guides
- What is a MET and how exercise calories workA MET is not a unit of energy. It is a multiple of resting metabolism, and the 3.5 it is built on comes from a single reference person, so MET tables run systematically generous for most adults. The costliest mistake is counting the same energy twice, once in your activity multiplier and once in your session log.
- How to set your macro ratiosA macro ratio is not something you feed into the plan; it is what falls out of it. The same 135 grams of protein reads 34% at 1,600 calories and 22% at 2,500, with the grams never moving. Lock the percentage instead and cutting calories cuts your protein exactly when you need it most.
- How many calories do I need a dayFive equations applied to the same body return five answers spread across 192 calories, the 2,000 on the packet is nobody's measured requirement, and the calories on a label are not the calories your body absorbs. What comes out is a band, not a point — and the middle of it should stay put.
This guide is for information only; it is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. Talk to a health professional before making a lasting change to your diet.