What is the ideal body weight?

What is the ideal body weight?For many people, there is a discrepancy between their ideal body weight for health, for appearance, and their present body weight. From the standpoint of optimum health, an ideal body weight is that weight associated with the lowest risk of diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. The problem is that even though research has defined a range of "healthy" body weights (those associated with low death rates), these ranges are usually based on looking at an entire population and are difficult to apply to any specific person. Also, typical ideal weight ranges tend to be fairly wide, varying by 10-20 pounds between individuals, so they're not terribly useful to someone interested in getting down to their own ideal weight. So what to do?

Even though there really are no precise methods for finding the ideal body weight for a given individual, there are several methods that can provide useful estimates of ideal body weight. The first, and probably most useful, is to find out your percentage body fat. In general, the lower your body fat percentage, the better, for both health and appearance. It is possible, of course, to have too little body fat such as in cases of eating disorders but this is an extremely uncommon occurrence, even in the fittest of professional athletes.

The most accurate and still affordable way to measure body fat is via the use of fat calipers, following the guidelines established by the American College of Sports Medicine. This technique involves measuring fat levels in the body by assessing levels at certain key fat depots with skin calipers.
Another relatively easy method for estimating a healthy body weight is the body mass index or BMI. The BMI is one the most scientifically accepted methods of estimating healthy weight, but it has some important drawbacks. BMI is a mathematical calculation that gives you a number associated with the risk of diseases associated with obesity. BMI is calculated by dividing your body weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. In general, as BMI increases, so does your risk for disease. The math equation breaks down a bit for people who are extremely muscular, so body builders, football players and many athletes in power-oriented sports will actually find that their BMI scores place them in a category at "higher risk" for diseases associated with obesity. So again, BMI is a useful tool to give you a quick and easy estimate, but it's not perfect.

Finally, a simple method of estimating ideal body weight can be found with a number of height and weight tables that exist. These tables are generated by many sources including government organizations, private medical facilities and large insurance companies. Whether or not the body weights listed in such tables are worth the paper they're printed on depends on several factors. For example some height/weight tables make an allowance for age - basically saying that we should get heavier as we get older. Other tables were developed specifically to estimate the death rates of middle aged men, not exactly the best tool for estimating the ideal body weight for a 20-year old female athlete.

Still other tables were developed for specific ethnic groups or for patients with specific conditions. Unless you know the purpose of the table and the population for which it was developed, the information provided is likely to no more useful than an educated guess. From the standpoint of optimum health, your "ideal" body weight is the one that is associated with the lowest risk of disease. Since it's tough to really get at this number for a specific person, your best bet is to start with calculating your body mass index (BMI). Although BMI is one of the most scientifically accepted methods of estimating healthy weight, it's just an estimate and it become less accurate for more muscular people. For those individuals interested in a more accurate estimate of their optimal body weight in terms of athletic performance or appearance, should consider having their body fat percentage calculated by one of the several options available.