You’re standing there, staring at the digital readout between your toes, and it says 160. Or maybe 145. Or 180. If you’re five-foot-seven, you’ve probably spent an embarrassing amount of time Googling whether that number means you’re "normal" or if you need to start living on kale and despair.
The truth is kinda messy.
Standard charts will tell you that a healthy weight for 5'7 falls somewhere between 118 and 159 pounds. That is a massive 41-pound gap. It’s the difference between a marathon runner’s frame and a weekend warrior with some decent muscle. Most people treat these ranges like a pass/fail exam in high school, but the human body doesn't actually work in binary.
The BMI Myth and the 5'7 Frame
We have to talk about the Body Mass Index (BMI). It’s that math formula—weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared—that doctors love because it’s fast. For a 5'7 individual, the math is simple. But the math is also incredibly stupid sometimes.
BMI was invented in the 1830s by a Belgian polymath named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. He wasn’t a doctor. He was a statistician. He explicitly said his formula shouldn't be used to judge individual health, yet here we are, nearly 200 years later, using it to determine insurance premiums.
If you are 5'7 and carry a lot of muscle, you might clock in at 170 pounds. Technically, the chart says you’re "overweight." But if your waist circumference is 30 inches and you can run a 5k without collapsing, you are likely metabolically healthier than a "sedentary" person at the same height who weighs 130 pounds but has high visceral fat. This is what researchers like those at the Mayo Clinic often call "skinny fat" or normal-weight obesity.
Why Bone Density and Muscle Mass Change Everything
Your skeleton isn't a fixed weight. Some people genuinely have "heavy bones"—or more accurately, higher bone mineral density.
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Densitometry highlights how much variance exists in skeletal weight across the same height demographics. Then there’s muscle. Muscle is dense. It’s heavy. It’s also metabolically active, meaning it burns calories while you’re sitting on the couch watching Netflix.
Let's look at two people, both 5'7.
Person A weighs 140 pounds. They don't exercise, they eat mostly processed carbs, and their body fat percentage is 32%.
Person B weighs 165 pounds. They lift weights three times a week, eat a high-protein diet, and their body fat is 22%.
Who has the healthy weight for 5'7?
Almost every medical professional would point to Person B. Even though they are "heavier," their risk for Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and systemic inflammation is significantly lower. Weight is just a proxy for health, and often a poor one at that.
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The Role of Waist-to-Hip Ratio
If you want to know if your weight is actually "healthy," put down the scale and grab a tape measure. Honestly, it’s a much better tool.
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that your waist-to-hip ratio is a much stronger predictor of heart attacks than BMI. For someone who is 5'7, where you carry your weight matters infinitely more than how much you carry. Subcutaneous fat—the stuff you can pinch on your arms or thighs—is mostly a cosmetic issue. Visceral fat—the stuff wrapped around your organs in your abdomen—is the real villain.
If your waist measurement is more than half your height (so, over 33.5 inches for a 5'7 person), you might want to look closer at your metabolic markers, regardless of what the scale says.
Age, Sex, and the 5'7 Reality
Biology isn't fair.
A 5'7 man and a 5'7 woman have very different "healthy" profiles. Men typically have more lean muscle mass and higher bone density, which naturally pushes their healthy weight toward the higher end of the 118–159 range. Women, conversely, require a higher body fat percentage for hormonal health. If a woman's weight drops too low, she risks amenorrhea (loss of period) and bone density loss, something often seen in the "Female Athlete Triad."
And then there's aging.
As we get older, we lose muscle mass—a process called sarcopenia. Research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests that for older adults, being slightly "overweight" on the BMI scale might actually be protective. It provides a reserve for the body during illness. If you're 65 and 5'7, weighing 165 pounds might actually be better for your longevity than weighing 125.
What the Science Says About Metabolic Health
Real health is found in your bloodwork, not your bathroom floor.
- Blood Pressure: Is it consistently under 120/80?
- Fast Glucose: Are your blood sugar levels stable?
- Lipid Profile: What do your HDL, LDL, and triglycerides look like?
- Energy Levels: Do you feel like a zombie by 2:00 PM?
You can be at a "perfect" 135 pounds for your height and have terrible metabolic health because of a diet high in ultra-processed foods. Conversely, you can be 160 pounds and have the bloodwork of an elite athlete.
The concept of "Healthy at Every Size" (HAES) has gained traction, but it's often misunderstood. It doesn't mean weight doesn't matter at all; it means that healthy behaviors—moving your body, eating whole foods, managing stress—matter more than hitting a specific number.
Stop Chasing the 120s
There is a weird obsession, especially in lifestyle media, with 5'7 women trying to get down to 120 or 125 pounds.
That is the very bottom of the "normal" range. For many people, maintaining that weight requires an unsustainable level of calorie restriction that can lead to hair loss, constant coldness, and irritability. It’s basically living in a state of semi-starvation.
If your body "wants" to be 150 pounds when you’re eating well and exercising, fighting it to get to 130 is a losing battle. Your set-point weight is a real thing. Your hypothalamus works hard to keep you within a certain weight range. When you push too far below it, your hunger hormones (like ghrelin) spike, and your metabolism slows down to "save" you from what it perceives as a famine.
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Actionable Steps for Finding Your Personal Healthy Weight
Forget the generic charts for a second. If you want to find the healthy weight for 5'7 that actually fits your specific DNA and lifestyle, you need a different roadmap.
First, get a DEXA scan or a high-quality body composition analysis. This will tell you exactly how much of your weight is fat, muscle, and bone. It’s a wake-up call for some and a huge relief for others. Knowing you have 10 pounds more muscle than average changes your perspective on the scale instantly.
Second, track your performance, not just your mass. Can you walk up three flights of stairs without huffing? Can you carry your groceries? Can you hold a plank for a minute? Physical capability is a far better metric for "healthy weight" than gravity's pull on your body.
Third, focus on protein and fiber. Instead of "dieting" to hit a number, aim for 0.7 to 1 gram of protein per pound of your goal weight. This protects your muscle mass while you lose fat. Pair that with 30 grams of fiber a day to keep your gut microbiome happy.
Fourth, watch your sleep. Sleep deprivation wrecks your insulin sensitivity. You could be doing everything right, but if you’re sleeping five hours a night, your body will cling to abdominal fat like a life raft.
Finally, check your waist-to-height ratio. It’s the simplest, most honest metric we have. Take a piece of string, cut it to your height (67 inches), fold it in half, and see if it fits around your waist. If it doesn't, it’s a sign to focus on fat loss—not necessarily "weight" loss, but specifically reducing visceral fat through better nutrition and movement.
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Health isn't a destination where you arrive and suddenly you're "done" because the scale hit 140. It's a moving target that shifts as you age, as you gain muscle, and as your life changes. Being 5'7 gives you a great canvas to build a strong, resilient body. Don't let a 19th-century math formula tell you that you're failing if you don't fit into a narrow, arbitrary box.