What is a good weight percentile?

There is not one. The percentile tells you how common your weight is, not whether it is healthy. Since most adults in the reference population are above a healthy weight, a mid-range percentile is not a good target.

What is the average weight for an adult?

In the United States, roughly 199 lb for men and 171 lb for women, with medians a little lower at about 191 lb and 164 lb. The median is the better figure to compare against, because the distribution is skewed.

Should I use weight percentile or BMI?

BMI, for anything to do with health, because it accounts for your height. Weight percentile is context - useful for curiosity, not for decisions.

Why is weight not normally distributed?

Because there is a hard lower limit on how little a person can weigh but no equivalent upper limit. That produces a long right tail, which a log-normal model captures and a bell curve does not.

Do weight percentiles differ by country?

Considerably. Average adult weight in the US is among the highest recorded, so the same body weight ranks far higher in most of Europe and much higher again in most of Asia.

Weight Percentile Calculator

See where your body weight sits in the adult population distribution for your sex.

Enter your details and your result will appear here.

What Is Weight Percentile?

This weight percentile calculator shows where your body weight sits in the adult population distribution for your sex.

It is a ranking, not a health assessment. Percentiles describe how common your weight is, and in populations where most adults are above a healthy weight, being near the middle of the distribution says nothing reassuring about your health.

Understanding Your Weight Percentile Result

Unlike height, body weight is not normally distributed. It is right-skewed: there is a floor below which nobody weighs, but no comparable ceiling, so the distribution has a long tail toward heavier weights. That is why a log-normal model fits population weight data far better than a plain bell curve.

In the United States, median adult male weight is around 191 lb (86.6 kg) and median female weight around 164 lb (74.5 kg). Both figures have risen substantially over the past four decades, which is the central caveat to the whole exercise: the reference population has moved.

This is why weight percentile is best read alongside BMI. Your percentile tells you how you compare to other people; your BMI tells you how your weight compares to your own height, which is far more relevant to health.

How Is Weight Percentile Calculated?

Percentile = log-normal CDF of your weight against the population median and log standard deviation

How to use this calculator

Select your sex and enter your weight. The result shows the share of adults who weigh less than you, along with BMI context if you supply your height.

Weigh yourself first thing in the morning after using the bathroom, for consistency rather than accuracy - daily fluctuation of two to four pounds is normal.

Reading a weight percentile honestly

The percentile compares you to other people. The population it compares you to has gained weight steadily for forty years, which means the middle of the distribution has moved away from the healthy range.

The useful reading is directional: a percentile far above or below the middle is worth understanding, but the number itself carries no health information.

Better measures for health

BMI relates weight to height and places you against clinical categories rather than against other people. Waist circumference captures abdominal fat, which drives cardiometabolic risk more directly than total weight.

If you want to know what your weight is made of, a body-fat estimate or lean body mass figure will tell you what no percentile can.

Methodology

Percentiles are calculated using a log-normal cumulative distribution fitted to NHANES adult reference medians and dispersion parameters, separately by sex. The log-normal form is used deliberately, because a normal distribution understates the right tail of modern population weight data.

Worked Example

A man weighing 175 lb sits near the 38th percentile of US adult men - about 38% of men weigh less than he does.

At 5 ft 10 in, that same weight gives a BMI of 25.1, which is just inside the overweight band. Below average for the population and marginally above the healthy range for his height: two completely different verdicts from the same number, which is precisely why percentile alone is a poor health measure.

Important Limitations

Percentiles reflect the population, not health, and population weight distributions have shifted heavily upward since the 1980s. Reference data used here is US-based, so the ranking will not transfer accurately to other countries. Weight percentile ignores height entirely - a 200 lb person who is 5 ft 4 in and one who is 6 ft 4 in share a percentile and nothing else. Use BMI, waist circumference or a body-fat estimate for anything health-related.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good weight percentile?: There is not one. The percentile tells you how common your weight is, not whether it is healthy. Since most adults in the reference population are above a healthy weight, a mid-range percentile is not a good target.
What is the average weight for an adult?: In the United States, roughly 199 lb for men and 171 lb for women, with medians a little lower at about 191 lb and 164 lb. The median is the better figure to compare against, because the distribution is skewed.
Should I use weight percentile or BMI?: BMI, for anything to do with health, because it accounts for your height. Weight percentile is context - useful for curiosity, not for decisions.
Why is weight not normally distributed?: Because there is a hard lower limit on how little a person can weigh but no equivalent upper limit. That produces a long right tail, which a log-normal model captures and a bell curve does not.
Do weight percentiles differ by country?: Considerably. Average adult weight in the US is among the highest recorded, so the same body weight ranks far higher in most of Europe and much higher again in most of Asia.