There’s no single number that answers this question for everyone. Your “ideal” weight depends on your height, age, sex, muscle mass, and body composition. The most widely used starting point is Body Mass Index (BMI), which defines a healthy weight as a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9. For a 5’6″ person, that translates to roughly 115 to 154 pounds. But BMI is just one piece of the picture, and for many people it’s not even the most useful one.
What BMI Says About Your Weight
BMI divides your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in meters. The CDC uses it to sort adult weights into four main categories:
- Underweight: below 18.5
- Healthy weight: 18.5 to 24.9
- Overweight: 25 to 29.9
- Obesity: 30 or higher
To get a rough sense of your healthy weight range, you can work backward from these numbers. At 5’4″, a healthy BMI corresponds to about 108 to 145 pounds. At 5’10”, it’s about 129 to 174 pounds. At 6’0″, the range stretches from 136 to 184 pounds. These ranges are wide on purpose: two people at the same height can weigh 40 pounds apart and both be perfectly healthy.
Large-scale research supports the idea that there’s a sweet spot within that range. A major meta-analysis covering over 30 million people found the lowest risk of death at a BMI of 20 to 24, depending on the population studied. Among healthy non-smokers tracked for 20 years or more, the lowest risk was in the 20 to 22 range. That doesn’t mean everyone should aim for a BMI of 21, but it does suggest the lower-to-middle part of the “healthy” range carries the least long-term risk for most adults.
Why BMI Can Be Misleading
BMI treats all weight the same. It can’t tell whether your pounds come from muscle, fat, bone, or water. Two people who are 5’9″ and 210 pounds can look completely different: one lean and muscular, the other carrying significant fat around the midsection. Both get the same BMI. An athlete with high muscle mass can land in the “overweight” category while having very low body fat. On the flip side, someone with a normal BMI can carry an unhealthy amount of visceral fat, the kind that wraps around organs and drives metabolic disease.
BMI also wasn’t designed with every population in mind. For people of Asian descent, the World Health Organization has identified higher health risks starting at a BMI of 23 rather than 25. That means someone with a BMI of 24 might fall in the healthy range by standard cutoffs but already face elevated risk based on their ethnic background.
Body Fat Matters More Than Weight Alone
If you want a more accurate picture, body fat percentage tells you something BMI can’t. A 2025 study using U.S. national survey data defined “overweight” as body fat of 25% or more for men and 36% or more for women, with “obesity” starting at 30% for men and 42% for women. There’s no universally agreed-upon ideal range, but these thresholds give you a practical benchmark.
You can estimate body fat through methods like skinfold calipers, bioelectrical impedance scales (the kind that send a small current through your feet), or a DEXA scan at a clinic. None of these are perfect, but they all give you information that a bathroom scale simply can’t provide. If your BMI looks high but your body fat is in a healthy range, you’re likely carrying more muscle than average, and that’s not a problem.
Where You Carry Weight Matters Too
Fat stored around your waist poses more health risk than fat on your hips or thighs. One way to check this is your waist-to-hip ratio: divide your waist measurement (at the narrowest point) by your hip measurement (at the widest). For most men, a healthy ratio is below 0.95. For women, the commonly cited threshold is below 0.85. You can also simply measure your waist circumference. For men, a waist over 40 inches signals increased risk. For women, the threshold is 35 inches.
These measurements are free, take 30 seconds, and in some research predict future health problems better than BMI does.
Healthy Weight Changes With Age
The weight that’s healthiest for you at 30 is not necessarily the same at 70. For adults over 65, research consistently shows that carrying a bit more weight is protective. One study found that the optimal BMI range for older women was 31 to 32, and for older men was 27 to 28, both well above the standard “healthy” cutoff of 25. Adults over 65 with a BMI below 25 actually faced higher risks of functional decline, falls, muscle weakness, and malnutrition.
This happens because as you age, you naturally lose muscle mass. A little extra weight provides energy reserves during illness and helps protect bones during falls. For older adults, the goal shifts from reaching a specific number on the scale to maintaining muscle strength and functional independence.
Weight Standards for Children and Teens
For anyone under 20, weight can’t be evaluated using the same fixed BMI cutoffs. Kids and teens are still growing, so their BMI is compared to other children of the same age and sex using percentile charts. The CDC defines a healthy weight as falling between the 5th and 85th percentile for age and sex. Below the 5th percentile is considered underweight; the 85th to 95th percentile is overweight; and the 95th percentile or above is classified as obesity. If you’re checking your child’s weight, a pediatrician can plot their growth over time, which is more informative than any single measurement.
How to Think About Your Target Weight
Rather than fixating on one number, it helps to think of your healthy weight as a range you can maintain without extreme restriction or constant hunger. Clinical guidelines have started moving in this direction too. The latest 2025 consensus from the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology emphasizes “complication-centric care,” meaning the focus should be on your actual health markers (blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol, joint pain, energy level, sleep quality) rather than hitting a specific BMI.
A practical approach: start with the BMI-based weight range for your height to get a ballpark. Then layer in what you know about your body composition, where you carry fat, your age, and your family history. If your blood work is healthy, you move well, and you sleep through the night, a number slightly outside the textbook range may be perfectly fine for you. If you’re inside the “healthy” range but have high blood pressure and prediabetes, the number on the scale is telling you less than your body is.
The weight you’re “supposed” to be is less about matching a chart and more about the range where your body functions best, and you can realistically stay.