You’re tall. Or, at least, taller than the average American woman who usually tops out around 5'4. At 5'8, you’ve got a frame that carries weight differently than someone shorter, and honestly, the "standard" advice you find online is usually garbage. Most people just point you toward an outdated chart from the 1970s and call it a day. But if you’ve ever felt like you’re "too heavy" for your size despite feeling great, or "thin" but totally exhausted, you know those charts are missing something big.
The ideal weight for 5'8 female isn't a static point on a scale. It’s a range. A wide one.
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If we go strictly by the book—meaning the Body Mass Index (BMI) used by organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—a woman who is 5'8 has a "normal" range between 122 and 164 pounds. That’s a 42-pound gap. Think about that for a second. Forty-two pounds is the difference between a sleek marathon runner and a heavy-lifting CrossFit athlete. Both are "ideal" depending on who you ask.
The BMI trap and why your frame matters
BMI is a math equation. It’s $weight / height^2$. It doesn't know if you’re made of marble-hard muscle or soft tissue. It doesn't know if you have the narrow shoulders of a runway model or the broad, sturdy build of an Olympic swimmer.
Let's talk about frame size. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company popularized "Height and Weight" tables decades ago, and they actually got one thing right: they acknowledged small, medium, and large frames. To figure out where you sit, wrap your thumb and middle finger around your wrist. If they overlap, you’ve likely got a small frame. If they just touch, you’re medium. If there’s a gap? You’re large-framed.
A 5'8 woman with a large frame might feel sickly at 130 pounds. Her bones might literally protrude in a way that isn't healthy. Conversely, a small-framed woman might carry too much visceral fat at 160 pounds, even though the BMI chart says she's "fine." It’s nuance. We hate nuance because it's hard to put in a catchy TikTok, but it's the truth.
Muscle versus the "skinny fat" phenomenon
Muscle is dense. It’s compact. You’ve probably heard people say muscle weighs more than fat, which is technically wrong—a pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead—but muscle takes up way less space.
Take two women who are both 5'8 and 155 pounds.
One spends her weekends hiking and her Tuesdays in the weight room. She’s lean, her resting heart rate is 55, and she fits into a size 6. The other lives a sedentary life, has low muscle mass, and carries most of her weight around her midsection. She’s a size 12.
Both are at the "ideal weight" according to the chart. Only one is metabolically healthy.
This is where the term "TOFI" comes in—Thin Outside, Fat Inside. Researchers at Imperial College London have used MRI scans to show that people can be within a healthy weight range but have dangerous levels of fat wrapped around their internal organs. If you're 5'8 and 125 pounds but can't climb a flight of stairs without gasping, that "ideal" weight is a lie.
What do the experts actually say?
Dr. Adrienne Youdim, a specialist in medical weight loss, often argues that we should look at "functional weight." Can you do the things you love? Is your blood pressure stable? Is your A1C in a healthy range?
If you look at the Hamwi formula—an old-school method used by some dietitians—it suggests a base of 100 pounds for the first 5 feet of height and 5 pounds for every inch after that. For a 5'8 woman, that’s $100 + (8 \times 5) = 140$ pounds. Give or take 10% for frame size. That puts the "sweet spot" between 126 and 154 pounds.
But even that feels restrictive.
Recent longitudinal studies have suggested that as we age, being on the slightly higher end of the BMI scale (the 23 to 27 range) might actually be more protective against osteoporosis and certain infectious diseases. For a 5'8 woman, a BMI of 27 is roughly 177 pounds. In some clinical circles, that’s "overweight." In the real world, for a 50-year-old woman with good muscle tone, it might be the healthiest she's ever been.
The Role of Body Fat Percentage
If you really want to ignore the noise, look at body fat percentage. This is a much better indicator than the scale.
- Athletic: 14% to 20%
- Fitness: 21% to 24%
- Acceptable: 25% to 31%
For most women at 5'8, staying in the 22% to 28% range provides enough body fat for hormonal health—remember, your fat produces estrogen—without crossing into the territory where systemic inflammation becomes a problem.
Why "Goal Weights" are often psychological hurdles
We often pick a number because we liked how we looked at that weight when we were 19. It’s a nostalgia trap. Your 35-year-old body has different bone density and different hormonal needs than your teenage self.
I’ve talked to women who are 5'8 and obsessed with hitting 135 pounds because that’s what they weighed on their wedding day. They get there, and they’re miserable. They’re hungry. Their hair is thinning. They have no libido. Is that "ideal"? No. It’s a self-imposed prison.
Kinda crazy how we let a piece of floor plastic dictate our happiness, right?
Real-world health markers to watch
Instead of obsessing over the ideal weight for 5'8 female, start tracking these instead:
- Waist-to-Hip Ratio: Take a measuring tape. Measure your waist at the narrowest point and your hips at the widest. Divide the waist by the hips. For women, a ratio of 0.80 or lower is considered healthy. It’s a massive predictor of cardiovascular health.
- The "Stairs Test": Can you walk up three flights of stairs without needing a break? If not, the number on the scale doesn't matter; your cardiovascular fitness needs work.
- Sleep Quality: Sleep apnea is often linked to weight, but so is insomnia caused by under-eating.
- Menstrual Consistency: If you're in your reproductive years and your period vanishes because you're trying to hit a "target weight," you have dropped below your body's biological ideal.
Actionable steps for finding your personal range
Stop looking for a single number. It doesn't exist.
First, get a DEXA scan if you’re truly curious. It’s the gold standard for measuring bone density and body composition. It will tell you exactly how many pounds of muscle, fat, and bone you’re carrying. You might find out you have 120 pounds of lean mass, meaning that aiming for 130 pounds is literally impossible and dangerous.
Next, focus on "lifestyle weight." This is the weight your body naturally settles at when you are eating whole foods 80% of the time, moving your body daily, and not feeling emotionally drained by your diet. For a 5'8 woman, this might be 150 pounds. It might be 165.
Finally, prioritize strength training. At 5'8, you have long levers (your limbs). Building muscle on a taller frame requires consistent effort, but it raises your basal metabolic rate. This means your "ideal" weight can actually be higher while you look leaner and feel stronger.
Ditch the 1970s charts. Listen to your joints, your energy levels, and your blood work. That is where your real ideal weight lives. --- For women at this height, the goal should be a body that is capable, resilient, and hormonally balanced, rather than a body that fits a specific, narrow mathematical definition. Move the focus from "how much do I weigh" to "what can my body do," and the numbers usually take care of themselves. Check your waist-to-height ratio by ensuring your waist circumference is less than half your height—for a 5'8 woman (68 inches), that means a waist under 34 inches. If you meet that criteria and your energy is high, you're likely exactly where you need to be.