BMI Chart for Men and Women: What's a Healthy BMI in 2026?

BMI (Body Mass Index) is the number your doctor checks at every physical and the one health screening that’s used more or less identically in every country on earth. It’s a screening tool — not a diagnosis — that takes two inputs (height and weight) and gives a single number that flags potential weight-related health risks.

This guide gives you the complete BMI chart for men and women, explains what every category actually means, and is honest about the things BMI gets wrong (which matters more than most online BMI pages let on).

What Is BMI?

BMI = weight (kg) ÷ height (m)² — or in U.S. units, weight (lbs) ÷ height (in)² × 703.

It’s a ratio of weight to height, full stop. It doesn’t measure body fat directly, doesn’t care about muscle versus fat, and doesn’t adjust for age, sex, or ethnicity. What it does do — cheaply, quickly, and reliably — is give a single number that correlates with health risk well enough to be useful as a first screen.

Calculate your BMI instantly with our free BMI Calculator — it handles both metric and imperial units.

BMI Chart — Full Reference Table

The table below shows BMI at common height/weight intersections. Find your height on the left column, your weight across the top, and read the BMI at the intersection.

Height	100 lb	120 lb	140 lb	160 lb	180 lb	200 lb	220 lb	240 lb	280 lb
4’10”	20.9	25.1	29.3	33.4	37.6	41.8	46.0	50.2	58.5
5’0”	19.5	23.4	27.3	31.2	35.2	39.1	43.0	46.9	54.7
5’2”	18.3	21.9	25.6	29.2	32.9	36.6	40.2	43.9	51.2
5’4”	17.2	20.6	24.0	27.5	30.9	34.3	37.8	41.2	48.1
5’6”	16.1	19.4	22.6	25.8	29.0	32.3	35.5	38.7	45.2
5’8”	15.2	18.2	21.3	24.3	27.4	30.4	33.4	36.5	42.6
5’10”	14.3	17.2	20.1	23.0	25.8	28.7	31.6	34.4	40.2
6’0”	13.6	16.3	19.0	21.7	24.4	27.1	29.8	32.5	38.0
6’2”	12.8	15.4	18.0	20.5	23.1	25.7	28.2	30.8	35.9
6’4”	12.2	14.6	17.0	19.5	21.9	24.4	26.8	29.2	34.1

Color-coded ranges: underweight (< 18.5), normal (18.5–24.9), overweight (25.0–29.9), obese (30.0+).

For a cleaner lookup with any height and weight combination — in any unit — use our BMI Calculator.

BMI Categories (WHO Standard)

The World Health Organization defines six BMI categories:

Category	BMI Range	General Health Risk
Underweight	Below 18.5	Increased
Normal weight	18.5 – 24.9	Lowest
Overweight	25.0 – 29.9	Increased
Obesity Class I	30.0 – 34.9	High
Obesity Class II	35.0 – 39.9	Very high
Obesity Class III	40.0 +	Extremely high

These are the same categories for both men and women. That’s important — you’ll occasionally see “BMI chart for women” and “BMI chart for men” as separate charts online, but they use identical values. The categories are based on population-wide health outcome data, not on sex.

BMI for Men vs Women

The categories don’t differ by sex, but there are real differences in how BMI relates to body composition:

Men typically carry more muscle and less essential body fat. A muscular man at BMI 26 is often healthier than the “overweight” label suggests.
Women typically carry more essential body fat (breast tissue, broader hip structure). A woman at BMI 22 usually has higher body-fat percentage than a man at 22.

This doesn’t mean the ranges are wrong for either sex — it means the ranges are calibrated to population health outcomes, not individual body composition. Two people with identical BMIs can have very different body-fat percentages. That’s why BMI is only the first step.

For a more accurate picture of your body composition, our Body Fat Calculator uses the U.S. Navy circumference method, which accounts for waist, neck, and (for women) hip measurements.

Limitations of BMI — The Honest Version

BMI’s main weaknesses are well-documented:

It doesn’t distinguish muscle from fat. A 6’0”, 225 lb NFL running back has a BMI of 30.5 — technically “obese.” No reasonable person looking at him would agree.
It doesn’t account for where fat is stored. Abdominal fat (visceral) is much worse for heart health than hip-and-thigh fat (subcutaneous), but BMI can’t tell them apart.
It doesn’t adjust for age or ethnicity. Older adults tend to lose muscle mass, so the same BMI may mean higher body fat. People of Asian descent face increased health risks at lower BMIs (some guidelines classify BMI 23+ as overweight for Asian populations).
It’s a screening tool, not a diagnosis. Doctors use BMI as a first look — not as the final answer.

A single additional measurement dramatically improves BMI’s predictive power: waist circumference. Waist > 40 inches (men) or > 35 inches (women) indicates abdominal fat accumulation associated with metabolic risk, almost regardless of BMI.

See your ideal weight range based on height and frame size with our Ideal Weight Calculator — it uses four different medical formulas (Devine, Robinson, Miller, Hamwi) so you can see the range rather than a single number.

What Your BMI Means for Your Health

The research is clear on the general risk patterns:

Underweight (BMI < 18.5) — associated with nutrient deficiencies, weakened immune response, fertility issues, osteoporosis, and higher surgical complications. Unintentional underweight in adults (especially older adults) is a clinical concern and often indicates an underlying condition.

Normal (18.5 – 24.9) — the lowest overall health risk across the whole population. Lowest rates of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and most cancers (though certain cancers have a U-shaped curve with slightly higher rates at very low BMI).

Overweight (25 – 29.9) — modestly elevated risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and cardiovascular disease. For physically active people with good metabolic markers (blood pressure, A1C, cholesterol), risk may be much lower than the category suggests.

Obese (30+) — significantly elevated risk of type 2 diabetes (often 5–10× the normal-weight rate), cardiovascular disease, certain cancers (especially colorectal, breast, endometrial), sleep apnea, and joint problems. Health risk increases roughly linearly with BMI above 30.

The most important qualifier: BMI is one factor among many. Blood pressure, fasting glucose, A1C, cholesterol, waist circumference, activity level, and diet quality are all independent predictors of health — and any of them can override BMI in either direction.

How to Get to (or Stay in) a Healthy BMI

The basics are not novel, but they’re what works:

Safe weight loss rate: 1–2 lbs per week. Faster loss tends to be mostly water and muscle, and tends not to stick. This corresponds to a calorie deficit of roughly 500–1,000/day.
Focus on sustainable habits, not crash diets. Anything you can’t maintain for 5 years probably won’t last 5 months.
Protein matters disproportionately. 0.7–1.0g of protein per pound of body weight helps preserve muscle during weight loss — keeping BMI changes meaningful (fat loss, not muscle loss).
Strength training preserves muscle. Two to three 30-minute sessions per week is enough to keep most of your muscle while losing fat. Without strength work, 25–30% of lost weight is typically muscle.
Activity beyond exercise. NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) — walking, fidgeting, standing — burns more calories for most people than formal workouts. Aiming for 8,000–10,000 steps/day is a high-leverage habit.
150+ minutes of moderate activity per week is the CDC’s baseline recommendation and correlates well with long-term weight maintenance.

Reasonable weekly weight-loss goal for different starting points:

Starting Weight	Target Weekly Loss	Weekly Deficit
160 lbs	0.5–1 lb	1,750–3,500 cal
200 lbs	1–1.5 lbs	3,500–5,250 cal
250 lbs	1.5–2 lbs	5,250–7,000 cal
300 lbs	2 lbs	7,000 cal

Heavier people can safely lose more per week because their baseline energy expenditure is higher.

When BMI Isn’t the Right Metric

For these groups, BMI is genuinely misleading — use different tools:

Athletes and heavily muscled individuals — use body fat percentage instead.
Older adults — BMI tends to underestimate body fat because muscle mass declines. Waist circumference and A1C are more informative.
Pregnant women — BMI is not applicable; use pre-pregnancy BMI and pregnancy-specific weight-gain charts.
Growing children and teens — use BMI-for-age percentile charts, not adult BMI categories. A 14-year-old at BMI 22 may be in a completely different risk bracket than a 40-year-old at BMI 22.

Final Thought

BMI is most useful as a single, easy-to-measure first screen — it catches the obvious cases on both ends and prompts a closer look at the middle. It’s not the final word on your health, and a slightly-over number on its own isn’t a crisis. Pair BMI with waist circumference, blood pressure, and basic blood markers and you have something close to a real picture of cardiovascular and metabolic risk.

Check your BMI in seconds. Our free BMI Calculator gives you your BMI, your category, and your healthy weight range. For a more complete picture of body composition, add the Body Fat Calculator and the Ideal Weight Calculator — three numbers together tell you much more than BMI alone.