A “good” weight depends on your height, age, sex, and body composition, so there’s no single number that works for everyone. The most common starting point is BMI (body mass index), which puts a healthy weight between a BMI of 18.5 and 24.9 for most adults. But BMI is just one piece of the puzzle, and for many people it’s not even the most useful one.
How BMI Estimates a Healthy Weight
BMI divides your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. The CDC defines these categories for adults 20 and older:
- Underweight: below 18.5
- Healthy weight: 18.5 to 24.9
- Overweight: 25 to 29.9
- Obesity: 30 or higher
In practical terms, a 5’6″ person falls in the healthy BMI range at roughly 115 to 154 pounds. A 5’10” person lands there between about 129 and 174 pounds. You can calculate yours with any free online BMI calculator using your current height and weight.
Clinicians also use a quick formula to ballpark an “ideal body weight” based purely on height. For women, it starts at about 100 pounds for 5 feet tall, then adds roughly 5 pounds per inch above that. For men, it starts at about 110 pounds for 5 feet, with the same 5 pounds per inch. These numbers are rough guides, not targets carved in stone, and they don’t account for frame size, muscle, or age.
Why BMI Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story
BMI treats all weight the same. It can’t distinguish between muscle and fat, so a muscular person may register as “overweight” while being perfectly healthy. The opposite problem is less obvious but just as real: someone with a normal BMI can carry too much body fat and too little muscle, a combination sometimes called sarcopenic obesity. Their scale weight looks fine, but their actual body composition puts them at higher metabolic risk.
Body fat percentage gives a more direct picture. A 2025 study using national survey data defined overweight as a body fat percentage of 25% or higher for men and 36% or higher for women. Obesity thresholds were 30% for men and 42% for women. There’s no universally agreed-upon “ideal” body fat range, and these numbers naturally rise with age, especially after 60. But they offer context that a scale alone can’t provide.
Where You Carry Weight Matters
Fat stored around your midsection poses more health risk than fat at your hips or thighs. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute flags a waist circumference over 35 inches for women or over 40 inches for men as a marker for increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. To measure, wrap a tape measure around your bare waist just above your hip bones, at the level of your belly button.
An even simpler check: your waist should be less than half your height. If you’re 5’8″ (68 inches), that means keeping your waist under 34 inches. This waist-to-height ratio works across different body sizes and ethnicities, making it one of the most practical self-checks available.
Your Ethnicity Can Shift the Thresholds
Standard BMI cutoffs were developed primarily from data on European populations. The World Health Organization found that people of Asian descent face higher risks of diabetes and cardiovascular disease at lower BMIs. For Asian populations, the WHO proposed a narrower healthy range of 18.5 to 22.9, with “overweight” starting at 23 rather than 25, and obesity starting at 25 rather than 30. If you’re of South Asian, East Asian, or Southeast Asian descent, a BMI that looks healthy by standard charts may already carry elevated risk.
Age Changes What “Healthy” Looks Like
The standard BMI advice gets complicated after 65. A large study tracking elderly men and women in Norway found that those in the “overweight” BMI category (25 to 29.9) actually had the lowest mortality rates. People with BMIs below 25 had higher death rates, and being moderately obese carried only a modest increase in risk for older women. The data showed that each 2.5-point drop in BMI below 25 was linked to a 20% increase in mortality, while each 2.5-point rise above 25 added only 7 to 9% more risk.
This doesn’t mean gaining weight in your 60s is protective. It likely reflects the fact that older adults with slightly higher weight have more muscle and energy reserves to draw on during illness or injury. Losing weight unintentionally in later life is a bigger concern than carrying an extra 10 or 15 pounds.
The Numbers That Matter Beyond the Scale
Your weight is one input, not the verdict. Metabolic health, the stuff happening inside your body, is what actually drives disease risk. Researchers define metabolic health using a cluster of markers: blood pressure, blood sugar, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and signs of inflammation and insulin resistance. You’re considered metabolically healthy if fewer than two of those markers are abnormal.
This matters because some people at a “normal” weight are metabolically unhealthy, while some people in the overweight or obese range have clean bloodwork, normal blood pressure, and no insulin problems. The scale number alone can’t tell you which camp you’re in. A routine blood panel from your doctor gives you far more actionable information than a BMI calculation.
How to Find Your Personal Target
Start with a few quick measurements you can do at home. Calculate your BMI to see where you fall in the standard ranges. Measure your waist and compare it to half your height. If both numbers land in healthy territory, your weight is likely fine from a risk standpoint.
If you want to go deeper, ask about body composition testing at your next checkup. Methods like bioelectrical impedance (common in smart scales) or a DEXA scan can estimate your body fat percentage and muscle mass separately. These aren’t perfect, but they reveal whether your weight comes from the right places.
For most adults, a practical “good weight” is one where your waist stays under half your height, your blood pressure and blood sugar are in normal ranges, you can move through daily activities without physical limitation, and your weight has been relatively stable rather than swinging dramatically. The number on the scale is the least interesting part of that picture.