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What Is the Right Weight for Your Height?

It's easy to find automatic weight-height calculators on the Internet. Type in your height, age, sex and your ideal weight will be revealed. Simple weight-height calculators use actuarial tables or other statistics compiled from a large population group, to decide what weight corresponds to the highest probability for longevity. But the population measured may not resemble you, and the healthy weight goal offered to you could be inaccurate.

  1. Identification

    • The best way to know if body weight is healthy is to measure body composition, or the ratio of fat to lean muscle mass. The most accessible methods of measuring body composition include water displacement or hydrostatic weighing, measurements of skin folds and body circumferences,and bio-electrical impedance, a method of using electrical current to measure lean body mass. Less commonly, other methods involving X-rays, ultrasound or infrared radiation may used to measure body composition.

    Expert Insight

    • Opinions among doctors and researchers vary as to the healthiest amount of body fat. According to the American Council on Exercise, fit men will have 14 to 17 percent body fat; fit women, 21 to 24 percent; male athletes will have 6 to 13 percent body fat; and female athletes, 14 to 20 percent. In practice though, some female athletes are observed to have body fat as low as 10 percent and men, lower than 4 percent.

    Potential

    • Though body composition testing is now commonly available at health clubs and some doctor's offices, most people do not take advantage of the technology. As an alternative, Body Mass Index, or BMI, has been devised as a way of roughly estimating body composition without having to take any complicated body measurements.

    Considerations

    • Like standard weight-height charts, BMI compares an individual to a population group in order to predict health and life expectancy. Its accuracy depends on how well the individual matches the population group. Age, sex, fitness level and ethnicity are all known to affect weight to height ratios independent of actual body composition. So, unless a person is compared to a population similar to themselves, their BMI will not be an accurate assessment of healthy weight.

    Prevention/Solution

    • BMI is most useful when combined with other body measurements. For instance, waist and upper arm circumference are easy to measure, and when compared to height, are good additional indicators of body composition. A large waist measurement corresponds with high body fat and may indicate that a person is actually overweight even if their BMI in withing normal limits. Conversely, a large bicep measurement is correlated with high muscle mass and might indicate that a person with a high BMI is actually not overweight.

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