Average Weight By Height

How tall are you? That’s a question that doesn’t often bother most people. “How much do you weigh?” however is a question usually left to the doctor’s office and not mentioned again in polite company.

The doctor’s office even has a term that applies to both questions at once. A person’s average weight by height is described as body mass index, or BMI for people who like medical jargon.

To calculate average BMI, or average weight by height, a calculator will most probably prove helpful. To determine BMI, divide your weight, in kilograms, by the square of your height in meters. But first you have to remember what squared numbers are.

The average weight by height in the United States has changed a bit over the last two decades. Using data taken from 1991 and 2001, we Americans seem to be getting wider but not taller. Even though 2001 is some pretty current data when statistics of such sweeping scale are compared, it’s still not today’s news. But listening to today’s news on the radio or TV, reading about it in the newspaper or on the internet, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume the wider-but-no-taller trend continues even now.

So what is the average weight by height for the average American? That depends on who you are asking about – the average American man or the average American woman. The difference between the sexes calls for a difference between the averages, too.

For US women, the average weight by height gained about 11 pounds between 1991 and 2001. That means we added an additional 7% to our overall body during that time period. And we only got less than one-third of a percent taller.

So what do those percentages and gains translate to in actual pounds and inches for those of us curious about the average weight by height in the average American woman? It means the average American woman weighs 155 pounds and she’s 5 feet, 6 inches tall.

And how did her average American male counterpart fare during that time? The average weight by height for the men followed the same trend as the ladies’ but men only gained an additional 6% in total body weight during the same time period. Today’s average American man weighs 185 pounds and he stands 5 feet, 11 inches tall. On average.