Height and Weight Chart for Adults

Healthy weight ranges for every height from 4′10″ to 6′6″, calculated from the adult BMI categories used by the World Health Organization and CDC. Applies to adult men and women aged 20 and over.

By Kashif Nazir KhanLast reviewed October 17, 2026

Adult weight ranges by height. Healthy = BMI 18.5–24.9; overweight = BMI 25–29.9; obesity = BMI 30 or more (WHO/CDC).
Height	Underweight	Healthy weight	Overweight	Obesity
4'10" (147 cm)	< 89 lb < 40.2 kg	89–119 lb40.2–54 kg	120–143 lb54.3–64.9 kg	≥ 144 lb ≥ 65.1 kg
4'11" (150 cm)	< 92 lb < 41.5 kg	92–123 lb41.5–55.9 kg	124–148 lb56.1–67.1 kg	≥ 149 lb ≥ 67.4 kg
5'0" (152 cm)	< 95 lb < 43 kg	95–127 lb43–57.8 kg	128–153 lb58.1–69.4 kg	≥ 154 lb ≥ 69.7 kg
5'1" (155 cm)	< 98 lb < 44.4 kg	98–132 lb44.4–59.8 kg	132–158 lb60–71.8 kg	≥ 159 lb ≥ 72 kg
5'2" (157 cm)	< 101 lb < 45.9 kg	101–136 lb45.9–61.8 kg	137–163 lb62–74.2 kg	≥ 164 lb ≥ 74.4 kg
5'3" (160 cm)	< 104 lb < 47.4 kg	104–141 lb47.4–63.8 kg	141–169 lb64–76.6 kg	≥ 169 lb ≥ 76.8 kg
5'4" (163 cm)	< 108 lb < 48.9 kg	108–145 lb48.9–65.8 kg	146–174 lb66.1–79 kg	≥ 175 lb ≥ 79.3 kg
5'5" (165 cm)	< 111 lb < 50.4 kg	111–150 lb50.4–67.9 kg	150–180 lb68.1–81.5 kg	≥ 180 lb ≥ 81.8 kg
5'6" (168 cm)	< 115 lb < 52 kg	115–154 lb52–70 kg	155–185 lb70.3–84 kg	≥ 186 lb ≥ 84.3 kg
5'7" (170 cm)	< 118 lb < 53.6 kg	118–159 lb53.6–72.1 kg	160–191 lb72.4–86.6 kg	≥ 192 lb ≥ 86.9 kg
5'8" (173 cm)	< 122 lb < 55.2 kg	122–164 lb55.2–74.3 kg	164–197 lb74.6–89.2 kg	≥ 197 lb ≥ 89.5 kg
5'9" (175 cm)	< 125 lb < 56.8 kg	125–169 lb56.8–76.5 kg	169–202 lb76.8–91.8 kg	≥ 203 lb ≥ 92.1 kg
5'10" (178 cm)	< 129 lb < 58.5 kg	129–174 lb58.5–78.7 kg	174–208 lb79–94.5 kg	≥ 209 lb ≥ 94.8 kg
5'11" (180 cm)	< 133 lb < 60.2 kg	133–179 lb60.2–81 kg	179–214 lb81.3–97.2 kg	≥ 215 lb ≥ 97.6 kg
6'0" (183 cm)	< 136 lb < 61.9 kg	136–184 lb61.9–83.3 kg	184–220 lb83.6–100 kg	≥ 221 lb ≥ 100.3 kg
6'1" (185 cm)	< 140 lb < 63.6 kg	140–189 lb63.6–85.6 kg	189–227 lb86–102.8 kg	≥ 227 lb ≥ 103.1 kg
6'2" (188 cm)	< 144 lb < 65.4 kg	144–194 lb65.4–88 kg	195–233 lb88.3–105.6 kg	≥ 234 lb ≥ 106 kg
6'3" (191 cm)	< 148 lb < 67.1 kg	148–199 lb67.1–90.4 kg	200–239 lb90.7–108.5 kg	≥ 240 lb ≥ 108.9 kg
6'4" (193 cm)	< 152 lb < 68.9 kg	152–205 lb68.9–92.8 kg	205–246 lb93.2–111.4 kg	≥ 246 lb ≥ 111.8 kg
6'5" (196 cm)	< 156 lb < 70.8 kg	156–210 lb70.8–95.2 kg	211–252 lb95.6–114.4 kg	≥ 253 lb ≥ 114.8 kg
6'6" (198 cm)	< 160 lb < 72.6 kg	160–215 lb72.6–97.7 kg	216–259 lb98.1–117.4 kg	≥ 260 lb ≥ 117.8 kg

How this chart is calculated

Each range comes straight from the body mass index definition, BMI = weight (kg) ÷ height (m)². The World Health Organization (Technical Report Series 894) and CDC classify adults as:

Underweight: BMI below 18.5
Healthy (normal) weight: BMI 18.5 to 24.9
Overweight (pre-obese): BMI 25.0 to 29.9
Obesity: BMI 30.0 or higher (class I 30–34.9, class II 35–39.9, class III 40+)

We multiply each cut-off by your height in metres squared and convert to pounds. Values are rounded to the nearest pound and 0.1 kg.

Men vs. women

The same BMI thresholds apply to adult men and women, so a single chart covers both. At the same BMI, women typically have a higher percentage of body fat than men, and older adults more than younger adults. If you want a single-number estimate that does differ by sex, the ideal weight calculator shows the Devine, Robinson, Miller and Hamwi formulas.

What this chart does not tell you

It is for adults only. Children and teens are assessed with BMI-for-age percentiles; see the growth chart for CDC weight-for-age curves.
BMI does not distinguish muscle from fat or measure where fat is stored.
Lower BMI cut-offs are used in some Asian countries because health risks start earlier.
There are no official “ideal weight by age” tables for adults; the categories are the same from age 20 onward.

Curious how your height compares? Try the height percentile calculator or see average height by country.

What the height and weight chart actually shows

The chart above lists, for every whole inch from 4′10″ (147.3 cm) to 6′6″ (198.1 cm), the band of body weights that corresponds to each adult BMI category. It is not a survey of what people of that height actually weigh, and it is not a list of "ideal" weights. Every number is a straight calculation from one formula and four cut-off points that the World Health Organization set out in its Technical Report Series 894 and that the CDC uses for adults aged 20 and over:

Category	BMI (kg/m²)
Underweight	below 18.5
Healthy (normal) weight	18.5 to 24.9
Overweight (pre-obesity)	25.0 to 29.9
Obesity class 1	30.0 to 34.9
Obesity class 2	35.0 to 39.9
Obesity class 3	40 or more

The CDC states that, for adults, these categories apply "regardless of age, sex, or race," which is why one chart serves men and women alike. It also calls BMI a screening measure that should be considered alongside other factors. That framing matters: the chart tells you where a weight sits on a population yardstick, not whether a particular person is healthy.

The formula behind every row

Body mass index is weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. To turn that around and get a weight range for a height, the page multiplies each cut-off by height squared:

weight (kg) = BMI × height (m)²

Height comes from the row's inches multiplied by exactly 2.54 cm, so 5′9″ is 69 × 2.54 = 175.26 cm, or 1.7526 m. Squared, that is 3.0716. Multiply by 18.5 and you get 56.8 kg; by 24.9 and you get 76.5 kg. Pounds are kilograms divided by 0.45359237, the exact legal definition of the pound, giving 125 to 169 lb. The table rounds pounds to the nearest whole number and kilograms to one decimal place, which is why the top of one band and the bottom of the next can occasionally show the same pound value: 24.9 and 25.0 differ by only a few tenths of a pound at shorter heights.

In imperial units the same calculation is often written as BMI = 703 × weight (lb) ÷ height (in)². The 703 is just the unit conversion bundled into a constant, and both versions give identical answers.

Worked examples at common heights

Height	Healthy range (BMI 18.5–24.9)	Overweight begins (BMI 25)	Obesity begins (BMI 30)
5′0″ (152.4 cm)	95–127 lb (43.0–57.8 kg)	128 lb	154 lb (69.7 kg)
5′4″ (162.6 cm)	108–145 lb (48.9–65.8 kg)	146 lb	175 lb (79.3 kg)
5′9″ (175.3 cm)	125–169 lb (56.8–76.5 kg)	169 lb	203 lb (92.1 kg)
6′0″ (182.9 cm)	136–184 lb (61.9–83.3 kg)	184 lb	221 lb (100.3 kg)
6′4″ (193.0 cm)	152–205 lb (68.9–92.8 kg)	205 lb	246 lb (111.8 kg)

Two patterns stand out. First, the healthy band widens as height increases, from about 32 lb at 5′0″ to more than 50 lb at 6′4″, because the range scales with height squared. Second, each extra inch of height adds roughly 4 to 6 lb to the top of the healthy range, with the step growing for taller people. If you want to see what these weights look like on a body of your height rather than as numbers, the 3D body visualizer draws a figure at any height and weight and reports the same BMI band.

Where BMI came from

The index is far older than most people assume. The Belgian astronomer and statistician Adolphe Quetelet described it in 1832 while trying to characterize the "average man." Looking at measurements of adults, he noticed that weight increased roughly in proportion to the square of height, rather than the cube you might expect for a three-dimensional object. For more than a century the ratio was known simply as the Quetelet index and was used mainly by statisticians.

Its medical career began in 1972, when the physiologist Ancel Keys and colleagues published "Indices of relative weight and obesity" in the Journal of Chronic Diseases. A review in the International Journal of Epidemiology summarizes their approach: they compared several candidate ratios, including weight divided by height and weight divided by height cubed, against two tests. A good index should track weight closely but be nearly independent of height, and it should correlate with measured body fat. Weight over height squared performed best, and Keys proposed calling it the body mass index. Within a decade it had become the standard obesity measure in epidemiology. The WHO's 1997 consultation, published in 2000 as TRS 894, fixed the cut-offs of 18.5, 25 and 30 that are used worldwide today.

Before BMI: the insurance tables

From the 1940s to the 1980s, the most familiar height-weight charts in doctors' offices came from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Its 1959 "desirable weight" tables gave separate ranges for small, medium and large frames, built from mortality data pooled across North American insurers. Frame size was never well defined, and critics later described the categories as little more than a split of the population into quartiles. The 1983 revision, based on the 1979 Build Study of millions of policyholders, raised the weights for most heights, added an elbow-breadth test for frame size, and dropped the words "desirable" and "ideal" because readers had taken them as optimal health targets. Those tables survive today mostly as the ancestors of the "ideal body weight" formulas used for drug dosing, which you can compare on the ideal weight calculator. BMI won out because it needs only two measurements, involves no subjective judgment, and was validated against outcomes in large population studies.

Where the standard chart can mislead

A chart this simple will misclassify some people. The limitations are well documented, and knowing them helps you read your row sensibly.

Muscle versus fat. BMI cannot tell lean tissue from fat. A heavily muscled athlete can fall in the "overweight" or even "obesity" band with little body fat, while an older adult who has lost muscle can sit in the healthy band with more fat than the number suggests. NICE guidance advises interpreting BMI with caution in adults with high muscle mass.

Where fat is stored. Fat around the abdomen is linked to higher cardiometabolic risk than fat on the hips and thighs, and BMI is blind to the difference. This is why NICE now recommends measuring waist-to-height ratio alongside BMI for adults with a BMI under 35. Its bands are 0.4 to 0.49 for healthy central adiposity, 0.5 to 0.59 for increased, and 0.6 or more for high. The practical rule is to keep your waist below half your height. To measure, NICE describes finding the bottom of the ribs and the top of the hips, wrapping the tape midway between them (just above the belly button) and breathing out naturally first.

Height itself. Quetelet's square law is an approximation. For adults of very different heights, weight tends to rise somewhat faster than height squared, so tall people get slightly higher BMI values and short people slightly lower ones for comparable builds. The Oxford mathematician Nick Trefethen proposed a "new BMI" of 1.3 × weight ÷ height^2.5, scaled so that an adult of about 1.69 m gets the same score either way. By his estimate, a 6-foot person would score about one point lower and a 5-foot person about one point higher. He is clear that the proposal is a mathematical argument, not the result of epidemiological studies, and no health agency has adopted it.

Height	Weight at standard BMI 25	Weight at Trefethen "new BMI" 25
5′0″ (152.4 cm)	58.1 kg	55.1 kg
5′9″ (175.3 cm)	76.8 kg	78.2 kg
6′0″ (182.9 cm)	83.6 kg	87.0 kg
6′4″ (193.0 cm)	93.2 kg	99.6 kg

The comparison shows why very tall readers sometimes feel the standard chart is harsh, and why short readers should not assume the healthy band is generous.

Different cut-offs for different populations

The single most important caveat for a global audience concerns ancestry. In 2004 a WHO expert consultation, published in The Lancet, reviewed evidence that many Asian populations have a higher percentage of body fat and higher risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease at a given BMI than European populations. It found that the BMI at which risk starts to rise ranged from 22 to 25 across different Asian populations. Rather than set a single new threshold, it kept the international categories and proposed additional "public health action points" at 23, 27.5, 32.5 and 37.5.

Some health systems now apply those lower points directly. NICE guidance in the UK uses a BMI of 23 to 27.4 for overweight and 27.5 or above for obesity in people of South Asian, Chinese, other Asian, Middle Eastern, Black African or African-Caribbean family background, with obesity classes 2 and 3 lowered by 2.5 points as well. The effect on the chart is substantial:

Height	Standard upper healthy limit (24.9)	Lower cut-off (23.0)
5′2″ (157.5 cm)	136 lb (61.8 kg)	126 lb (57.0 kg)
5′6″ (167.6 cm)	154 lb (70.0 kg)	143 lb (64.6 kg)
5′10″ (177.8 cm)	174 lb (78.7 kg)	160 lb (72.7 kg)

This site's chart shows the international WHO and CDC categories because they are the common reference worldwide. If one of the groups above describes you, ask your doctor which thresholds apply where you live.

How weight and height compare in the real population

It helps to see the chart against actual measurements. The CDC's NHANES survey for August 2021 to August 2023 found an average height of 175.1 cm (about 5′9″) for US men and 161.2 cm (about 5′3½″) for US women aged 20 and over. A companion NCHS data brief reported that 40.3% of US adults had a BMI of 30 or more in that period, with no significant difference between men (39.2%) and women (41.3%), and that 9.4% had severe obesity (BMI 40 or more), more often among women. In other words, the healthy band on this chart describes a minority of American adults rather than the typical one. That is a statement about population health trends, not about any individual.

Height itself also shifts the picture. Because the chart scales with height squared, a woman of average US height and a man of average US height have healthy ranges about 21 lb apart at the upper limit. You can see exactly where your own height falls among US adults with the height percentile calculator, or check national averages on the average height by country page.

How to measure yourself accurately

Small errors in height have an outsized effect, because height is squared. Measuring yourself 2 cm too short at 170 cm raises your BMI by about 2.4%. A few habits improve accuracy:

Height: stand barefoot on a hard floor with heels, buttocks and shoulder blades against a wall, looking straight ahead. Slide a hardcover book down until it touches the crown of your head, mark the wall, and measure. Height is a little greater in the morning than in the evening because the spinal discs compress during the day, so measure at a consistent time.
Weight: use the same scale on a hard surface, ideally in the morning after using the bathroom and before eating, wearing light clothing.
Units: if your height is in feet and inches, convert it precisely rather than rounding to the nearest half foot. The height converter gives exact centimeters, and dedicated pages such as 5′9″ in cm or 170 cm in feet show the arithmetic step by step.

When to use something other than this chart

The chart is meant for non-pregnant adults aged 20 and over. For anyone younger, BMI is interpreted as a percentile for age and sex, because a healthy child's BMI rises and falls naturally during growth; the site's growth chart covers those curves. During pregnancy, weight gain is judged against pre-pregnancy BMI using separate guidance. Older adults, people with significant muscle mass, amputees and people with conditions that affect fluid balance can all be misclassified.

If your result surprises you, or you have concerns about your weight, the right next step is a conversation with a doctor, who can consider waist size, body composition, blood pressure, blood tests and family history. Used for what it is, a fast and transparent screening reference, the height and weight chart is a useful starting point, and nothing more.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the chart stop at 4′10″ and 6′6″?

Those limits cover the large majority of adults; in US NHANES 2021–2023 data the 5th percentile for women is 149.6 cm and the 95th for men is 187.2 cm. The BMI formula itself works at any height, so you can multiply your height in meters squared by 18.5 and 24.9 to get your own range.

What is the healthy weight range if I use Asian BMI cut-offs?

A 2004 WHO expert consultation suggested extra public health action points at a BMI of 23 and 27.5, and NICE uses 23 as the start of overweight for people of South Asian, Chinese, other Asian, Middle Eastern, Black African or African-Caribbean background. At 5′4″ (162.6 cm), a BMI of 23 is about 60.8 kg or 134 lb, compared with 145 lb at the standard 24.9 limit.

Where did the old Metropolitan Life height and weight tables go?

Insurance tables based on frame size were widely used from the 1940s to the 1980s. The 1983 revision dropped the words desirable and ideal, and health agencies later replaced such tables with BMI ranges, which apply to everyone without a subjective frame-size judgment.

Does a tall person get a fair BMI?

Not entirely. Weight tends to rise faster than height squared, so tall people often get slightly higher BMI values for the same build, and short people slightly lower ones. Oxford mathematician Nick Trefethen proposed using height to the power 2.5 to reduce this, but the WHO and CDC still use height squared.

How often should I check my weight against the chart?

The chart is a screening reference, not a target to check daily. Body weight naturally moves by a kilogram or more across a day. If your weight changes a lot without explanation, or you are unsure what range is right for you, talk to a doctor.

Can I use this chart during pregnancy or for teenagers?

No. Pregnancy weight gain is judged against pre-pregnancy BMI with separate guidance, and people under 20 are assessed with BMI-for-age percentiles, because children's BMI changes naturally as they grow.

How much should I weigh for my height?

For adults, a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered a healthy weight by the WHO and CDC. For example, at 5′9″ that is 125–169 lb (56.8–76.5 kg). Find your height in the chart above for your range.

Is the height-weight chart different for men and women?

The adult BMI categories are the same for men and women, so the healthy weight range for a given height is the same. On average, men carry more muscle and women more body fat at the same BMI, which BMI cannot distinguish.

What is a healthy weight for a 5'4" woman?

108–145 lb (48.9–65.8 kg), which corresponds to a BMI of 18.5–24.9.

What is a healthy weight for a 6 foot man?

136–184 lb (61.9–83.3 kg), which corresponds to a BMI of 18.5–24.9.

Does healthy weight change with age?

The WHO and CDC use the same adult BMI categories at every age from 20 upward, so this chart does not change with age. There is no official age-specific adult chart. For children and teens, healthy weight is judged with BMI-for-age percentiles instead.

Is BMI accurate?

BMI is a quick screening tool, not a diagnosis. It does not separate muscle from fat or show where fat is stored. Very muscular people can have a high BMI without excess fat, and waist size adds useful information. A WHO expert consultation also noted that health risks begin at lower BMIs in many Asian populations.

How is the weight range calculated?

Weight = BMI × height in metres squared. For a height of 1.75 m, the healthy range is 18.5 × 1.75² = 56.7 kg to 24.9 × 1.75² = 76.3 kg. We convert kilograms to pounds using 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg.