Healthy weight range for your height
The healthy band runs from a BMI of 18.5 up to but not including 25, so the weight range is those two figures multiplied by your height in metres squared. At 165 cm that is 50.4 kg to 68.0 kg, or 111.1 lb to 150.0 lb. The range widens with height, and not evenly: at 165 cm another centimetre adds about 0.6 kg to the bottom and 0.8 kg to the top, so a range quoted for one height says little about another.
Adult bands at this height
| Underweight | 0 | Under 18.5 | 50.3 and under | 111.0 and under |
| Healthy weight | 18.5 | 18.5 to under 25.0 | 50.4 – 68.0 | 111.1 – 150.0 |
| Overweight | 25 | 25.0 to under 30.0 | 68.1 – 81.6 | 150.1 – 180.0 |
| Obesity | 30 | 30.0 and over | 81.7 and over | 180.1 and over |
An estimate, not medical advice. Body metrics are population averages and do not account for your individual circumstances. Speak to a clinician about anything that matters.
At 165 cm the healthy band is 50.4 kg to 68.0 kg, a spread of 17.6 kg — wide enough that a single target weight inside it is a preference rather than a finding.
The range is the cut-offs run backwards through the same formula, so the top figure is the last weight that still gives a BMI below 25 rather than the weight at 25 exactly.
Height is squared, so a mistake in it counts twice: measuring 2 cm short at 165 cm moves the bottom of the range by about 1.2 kg and the top by about 1.7 kg.
How it works
The formula
BMI = weight / height^2
= kilograms / metres squared
Imperial input is converted first, and exactly:
1 in = 2.54 cm 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg
The band is decided on the unrounded BMI:
under 18.5 underweight
18.5 to under 25 healthy weight
25 to under 30 overweight
30 and over obesity
On the lowered action points the middle two
cut-offs move to 23 and 27.5.
A band's weight range is the same formula run
backwards:
weight = BMI x metres squared
and each end is rounded inwards to a tenth -
the bottom up, the top down - so every weight
printed is inside the band it is listed under.
What it assumes
- The band is decided on the unrounded BMI, not on the figure displayed. A BMI shown as 25.0 can still read as healthy weight, because the value before rounding was 24.97 and a cut-off is a number rather than a display.
- Below the age of 20 the adult bands are withheld. BMI at that age is read against a BMI-for-age reference, where the same figure means different things at 12 and at 17, so applying the adult bands to a child does not approximate the answer, it gives the wrong one.
- Each weight range is rounded inwards to a tenth, so every weight shown is genuinely inside its band. The consequence is a tenth of a kilogram between one band's top and the next band's bottom, and that gap is the boundary itself rather than a missing case.
- The kilogram and pound ranges are each rounded in their own unit rather than one being converted from the other, so the pound range is the tightest true pound range and is not always the exact conversion of the kilogram one.
- BMI carries no term for body composition, fat distribution or frame. Muscle is denser than the fat it replaces, so a trained athlete lands high on a body that is not overweight, and somebody who has lost muscle with age can land in the healthy band while carrying more fat than they used to.
- Pregnancy cannot be detected from a height and a weight, and the adult bands do not apply during it or while breastfeeding.
- The lowered cut-offs are points for public health action rather than a second classification. The 2004 WHO consultation kept the international bands unchanged and named 23.0 and 27.5 as triggers, leaving each country to decide where they apply.
Common questions
Why is the healthy weight range so wide?
Because it is a range of body sizes, not a target. At 1.75 m the healthy band runs from about 57 kg to 76 kg — nearly 20 kg — and every weight in it carries the same population-level risk. Where you sit inside it is decided by frame, muscle and what you can maintain, none of which BMI measures.
Does the healthy weight range change as I get older?
Not in the standard bands, which are fixed for everyone over 20. Some clinicians use a slightly higher range for people over 65, on the evidence that carrying a little more is protective at that age, but that is a judgement made with a patient rather than a published threshold.
Sources
- Obesity and overweight
- Appropriate body-mass index for Asian populations and its implications for policy and intervention strategies
- Heart-Healthy Living: Aim for a Healthy Weight
- Growth reference data for 5-19 years — BMI-for-age
- NIST Guide to the SI (Special Publication 811), Appendix B: conversion factors
Method written and checked by Tessalor on Jul 30, 2026.
The full method, worked example and every assumption behind this figure are on BMI Calculator.