Teen Health

Your Healthy Weight: Body Mass Index

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The healthy range is incredibly wide. My patient Anita (who’s seventeen, measures five feet four, and weighs 140) is in the healthy range—but that range goes from 101 to 146 pounds! So BMI is just one piece of the puzzle helping you figure out your best weight. Since Anita has a hormonal imbalance, I’d expect her to be on the high end of the normal range. But I also know she exercises nearly every day and has a very healthy diet. So landing somewhere in the middle makes sense for her. It’s also important to take into account elements like genetics and her metabolic rate.

When you factor in all these different variables, plus genetics and personal metabolic rate, it makes sense that there’s a wide range of healthy.