You’re standing in front of the mirror, or maybe you’re at the doctor’s office staring at that sliding balance beam scale that feels like a relic from 1950. You want a straight answer. You’re five-foot-seven. You want a number. Give me the number, right? Well, the truth is that asking how much should you weigh 5 7 is a bit like asking how much a car should weigh without knowing if it's a carbon-fiber racing machine or a steel-framed SUV.
Bodies are weird. They're heavy in different ways.
Standard medical charts, the ones you see plastered on clinic walls, usually point to a "normal" range. For someone who is 5'7", that range typically falls between 121 and 158 pounds. That’s a massive 37-pound gap. It’s the difference between looking lean enough to run marathons and having a frame that holds a significant amount of muscle or curve. If you’re at 122, you’re "healthy." If you’re at 157, you’re "healthy."
But honestly? Those charts don't know if you've been hitting the squat rack or if you've got a bone structure that would make a Viking jealous.
The BMI Myth and Why We Still Use It
We have to talk about the Body Mass Index (BMI). It was created in the 1830s by a Belgian guy named Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet. Here’s the kicker: he wasn’t even a doctor. He was a mathematician. He wanted to find the "average man," not the "healthy person." Yet, nearly 200 years later, we are still using his math to determine if our weight is okay.
For a 5'7" individual, the BMI formula—your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters—is the gatekeeper.
Under 18.5 is underweight.
18.5 to 24.9 is "normal."
25 to 29.9 is overweight.
It's simple math. But math is cold. It doesn't care about your lifestyle. If you are a 5'7" athlete with 10% body fat and 165 pounds of pure muscle, BMI says you are overweight. It’s a biological lie. The CDC and the World Health Organization use these numbers because they are easy for large populations, but for you, the individual, the scale is just one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle.
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Frame Size Actually Matters
Have you ever heard someone say they are "big-boned"? People usually laugh it off as an excuse, but it’s a real medical reality. Frame size is determined by the breadth of your bones and the size of your joints.
Think about your wrist.
If you take your thumb and middle finger and wrap them around your opposite wrist at the bone:
- If they overlap, you likely have a small frame.
- If they just touch, you’re medium.
- If there’s a gap, you’re large-framed.
A 5'7" person with a large frame might feel—and look—sickly at 125 pounds. Their skeleton alone requires more mass to support it. Conversely, a small-framed person might feel sluggish and "heavy" at 150 pounds. This is why the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company created those famous height and weight tables back in the day; they realized that insuring people required looking at more than just height. They needed to know how much "house" was built on the foundation.
The Role of Muscle vs. Fat
Muscle is dense. It’s like lead compared to the feathers of fat. You’ve probably heard this a million times, but seeing it in practice is different. Two people can both be 5'7" and weigh 150 pounds, but one might wear a size 4 and the other a size 10.
Why? Because muscle occupies about 15% to 20% less space than fat by weight.
When you’re trying to figure out how much should you weigh 5 7, you should really be asking what your body composition is. Visceral fat—the stuff that hangs out around your organs—is the real villain here. You can be "skinny fat," where your weight is low but your metabolic health is actually pretty bad because you lack muscle and carry internal fat.
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Dr. Robert Lustig, a prominent neuroendocrinologist, has often pointed out that thin people can have the same metabolic diseases as obese people. Weight isn't the shield we think it is.
Age and the "Middle-Age Spread"
Let's be real: your "ideal" weight at 22 is probably not your ideal weight at 55.
As we age, we lose sarcopenia (muscle mass) and our metabolism pulls a disappearing act. Research suggests that for older adults, being on the slightly "overweight" side of the BMI scale (around 25 to 27) might actually be protective. It provides a reserve in case of illness and helps prevent osteoporosis. If you're 60 years old and 5'7", weighing 160 pounds might actually be "healthier" for your longevity than trying to starve yourself back down to the 130 pounds you weighed in college.
Beyond the Scale: What to Track Instead
If the scale is a liar, what should you actually look at?
- Waist-to-Height Ratio: This is gaining a lot of steam in the medical community. Basically, your waist circumference should be less than half your height. For a 5'7" person (67 inches), your waist should ideally be under 33.5 inches. This is a much better predictor of heart disease than weight ever will be.
- Energy Levels: Do you wake up tired? Can you walk up two flights of stairs without gasping?
- Blood Markers: Your A1C, your LDL/HDL cholesterol, and your blood pressure. These are the "silent" numbers that actually determine how long you're going to live.
I once knew a guy, about 5'7", who obsessed over hitting 145 pounds. He got there. He was miserable. He was cold all the time, his hair was thinning, and he had no energy to play with his kids. He eventually settled at 160 pounds through heavy lifting and a balanced diet. He "weighed" more, but he looked leaner and felt like a superhero. The number was irrelevant.
Cultural and Ethnic Nuances
We also have to acknowledge that "ideal" weight isn't a one-size-fits-all across different ethnicities. For example, research has shown that people of South Asian descent may face higher risks of type 2 diabetes at lower BMIs compared to those of European descent.
For a 5'7" person of Asian heritage, the "healthy" BMI cutoff might actually be lower (around 23) because of how their bodies store fat. Meanwhile, some studies suggest that African American populations may have higher bone mineral density and muscle mass, meaning a "higher" weight on the scale doesn't carry the same health risks. The medical world is slowly—very slowly—starting to realize that using a 19th-century European formula for a 21st-century global population is a bit ridiculous.
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The Psychology of the Number
We get so attached to these digits. It’s a metric of control. But your weight fluctuates by 3 to 5 pounds every single day just based on water, salt, and inflammation. If you eat a salty ramen bowl tonight, you might "gain" 3 pounds by tomorrow morning. Did you gain 3 pounds of fat? No. You’re just holding onto water.
If you're asking how much should you weigh 5 7 because you're trying to hit a goal, make sure that goal isn't arbitrary. Don't pick a number just because it sounds "clean" or because it's what you weighed in high school.
Actionable Steps for the 5'7" Individual
Stop chasing a ghost. If you want to find your own personal "ideal" weight, follow these steps instead of staring at a 1990s height-weight chart.
First, get a DEXA scan or a BodPod reading. If you really want to know what’s going on, ignore the $20 bathroom scale. A DEXA scan will tell you exactly how many pounds of bone, fat, and muscle you have. It’s the gold standard. It might cost $100, but it’ll save you years of psychological torment.
Second, measure your waist at the navel. Don't suck it in. Just be honest. If you're 5'7" and that number is over 35 inches for a woman or 40 inches for a man, it's time to look at your metabolic health, regardless of what the total weight says.
Third, focus on performance goals. Instead of saying "I want to weigh 140," say "I want to be able to do 10 pushups" or "I want to walk a mile in 15 minutes." When you move your body and feed it properly, it eventually "settles" into a weight that it can maintain comfortably. This is often called the "Set Point Theory." Your body has a weight it wants to be at. If you fight it too hard, it’ll just fight back by making you ravenously hungry.
Finally, check your bloodwork. Go to your doctor. Get a full panel. If your triglycerides are low, your "good" cholesterol is high, and your blood sugar is stable, then whatever you weigh at 5'7" is likely exactly where you need to be.
Your "ideal" weight is the lowest weight you can maintain while still living a socially active, energetically vibrant, and mentally sane life. Anything lower than that isn't a goal; it's a prison. Weight is just a measurement of your relationship with gravity. It doesn't measure your worth, your fitness, or your future. Focus on the inputs—the food, the movement, the sleep—and let the output (the weight) take care of itself.