The average height for an adult woman in the United States is 5 feet 3.5 inches (63.5 inches, or about 161 cm). This figure comes from the most recent CDC anthropometric data, collected between August 2021 and August 2023 and published in June 2025.
What That Number Actually Looks Like
At 5’3.5″, the average American woman stands roughly at chin level on the average American man (5’9″). If you’re within an inch or two of that mark in either direction, you’re solidly in the middle of the pack. A woman who is 5’1″ or shorter falls in the lower range, while 5’6″ and above puts you noticeably taller than most women around you.
Keep in mind this is a population average across all adult women aged 20 and older, spanning every age group, ethnic background, and region. Your own height relative to your peers may feel different depending on where you live and the communities you’re part of.
How American Women Compare Globally
A century ago, American women were among the tallest in the world. Women born in the late 1890s in the U.S. averaged above 158 cm (about 5’2″), rivaled only by women in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. Since then, however, the U.S. has seen the smallest height gain of any high-income country.
Women in the Netherlands, Denmark, and several other Northern European nations now average around 5’5″ to 5’7″, comfortably surpassing the American average. The U.S. height plateau started earlier than in most wealthy nations, and the gap has widened over the past several decades. American women haven’t gotten shorter, but women in other developed countries have continued getting taller while U.S. gains largely stalled.
Why Height Varies So Much
Genetics sets a range for how tall you can grow, but whether you reach the top or bottom of that range depends heavily on environment. Height is one of the most sensitive indicators of population well-being because it reflects nutrition, healthcare access, economic conditions, and social equality all at once.
Diet during childhood and adolescence plays a particularly large role. A major analysis of 152 populations found that the strongest dietary predictor of adult height is the quality of protein children consume. Dairy proteins had the most powerful effect, likely because milk and cheese deliver not just protein but also calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D, all critical for bone growth. Populations with high intake of dairy, eggs, pork, and beef tended to be the tallest, while populations relying heavily on rice and legumes as primary protein sources tended to be shorter.
Beyond diet, the number of children per family matters. In populations where families have fewer children, each child typically receives more nutritional and economic resources during growth years. Child mortality rates and urbanization also play a role. Interestingly, raw national wealth (GDP per capita) was not a strong direct predictor of height. How evenly resources are distributed across a population mattered more than the total amount of wealth available.
Why U.S. Height Gains Have Stalled
The plateau in American women’s height likely reflects several overlapping factors. The U.S. has greater income inequality than most other wealthy nations, meaning a significant portion of children grow up without consistent access to high-quality nutrition and healthcare. Disparities in childhood nutrition, healthcare coverage, and poverty rates all contribute to a population average that hasn’t budged much in decades, even as other affluent countries continue to see gains.
Current protein recommendations from international health organizations may also play a role on a broader scale. Research suggests these guidelines, based on older nitrogen-balance studies, underestimate the protein needs of growing children by nearly double. Children who don’t get enough high-quality protein during critical growth windows simply don’t reach the same adult height they otherwise could.
Height Changes With Age
The 5’3.5″ average includes women of all ages, but height isn’t static across a lifetime. Women typically reach their full adult height by their late teens. After about age 40, gradual compression of the spinal discs and changes in posture begin to reduce measured height. By age 70, many women have lost half an inch to a full inch. By 80, losses of one to two inches are common. This means younger American women tend to measure slightly taller than the overall average, while older women pull the number down somewhat.
If you measured yourself at the doctor’s office in the morning and again in the evening, you’d also notice a difference of up to half an inch. Spinal discs compress slightly throughout the day under the force of gravity, so morning measurements tend to be the tallest.