Ideal Body Weight Charts
Ideal Body Weight Charts
John McDougall, M.D. offers alternate ideal body weight charts showing much leaner body ideals than the government’s upward-trending Body Mass Index (BMI) based on averages. These charts may be “politically incorrect” but more accurately reflect the weights of indigenous people all over the planet who eat whole-foods diets closer to the earth and suffer from little degenerative disease:
| Women | |
| Height | Wt. Should Be Below* lbs. |
| 4ft 11in | 91 |
| 5ft | 94 |
| 5ft 1in | 97 |
| 5ft 2in | 100 |
| 5ft 3in | 104 |
| 5ft 4in | 108 |
| 5ft 5in | 112 |
| 5ft 6in | 117 |
| 5ft 7in | 122 |
| 5ft 8in | 127 |
| 5ft 9in | 132 |
| 5ft 10in | 137 |
| 5ft 11in | 142 |
| 6ft | 147 |
| *Fully Dressed | |
| Men | |
| Height | Wt. Should Be Below* lbs. |
| 5ft 2in | 110 |
| 5ft 3in | 115 |
| 5ft 4in | 120 |
| 5ft 5in | 125 |
| 5ft 6in | 130 |
| 5ft 7in | 135 |
| 5ft 8in | 140 |
| 5ft 9in | 145 |
| 5ft 10in | 150 |
| 5ft 11in | 155 |
| 6ft | 160 |
| 6ft 1in | 165 |
| 6ft 2in | 170 |
| 6ft 3in | 175 |
| 6ft 4in | 180 |
| 6ft 5in | 185 |
| *Fully Dressed | |
Fact: Listen to your body and know what weight it wants to be at. Not what your metabolism wants, because your metabolism may be damaged and in need of rehabilitation and nourishment. But rather, know what lean is for you, and be willing to go there, off the government’s “ideal body weight charts” based on averages, and stay there with a whole-foods diet. Definitely don’t beat yourself up if you are trying to lose weight, and set realistic goals. But don’t make target numbers relative to the BMI chart, how many babies you’ve had, or things that skew a truly healthy weight.