What Is The Average Bmi For A 5-foot 7-inch Woman?

The taller you are, the more you can weigh while still retaining a healthy body weight. BMI, or body mass index, is a metric that reflects this fact by entering both body weight and height into a calculation. Average BMI for various areas, especially as compared to healthy BMI ranges, can tell you a lot about national habits and your personal health.

BMI Basics

Body mass index compares body weight to height by putting both numbers through a formula. For metric measurement, you divide the weight in kilograms by height in meters squared. With imperial measurement, multiply weight by 703, then divide the total by height in inches squared. Because it automatically accounts for height, the BMI for a 5-foot, 7-inch woman is the same as that for a woman of any other height.

Average BMI

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics report the median BMI for American women as slowly escalating with age: 24.4 for ages 20 to 29, 26.4 for ages 30 to 39, 27.8 for ages 40 to 49 and 28.4 for ages 50 to 59. Seniors see a gradual decline in BMI, at an average of 27.5 for women over 60. It's worth noting that the U.S. has the highest average BMI of all countries in the world, owing to increasingly sedentary lifestyles and easy access to abundant food.

Recommended BMI

The World Health Organization defines "normal" or "healthy" BMI as 18.5 to 24.9. Note that only women under 30 have an average score in this range, and that score is just half a point from overweight. According to Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, your longevity and health both increase as you approach a normal BMI, and decrease the farther you are away from it.

Recommended Body Weight

BMI doesn't vary according to height. However, a woman who is 5 feet, 7 inches tall has a specific range of weights that fit with a healthy BMI result. Reverse engineering of the BMI formula shows that a woman of that height should keep her body weight between 118 pounds and 160 pounds to maintain a BMI within the "normal" or "healthy" range.