Is There an Ideal Weight for a 6'2" male?
At 6-foot-2 your ideal weight can fall into a nearly 50-pound ideal range. Even outside of this range your weight may still be healthy if your body fatness is within the ideal range.
At 6-foot-2 your ideal weight can fall into a nearly 50-pound ideal range. Even outside of this range your weight may still be healthy if your body fatness is within the ideal range. Use these guidelines as a general reference but consult your medical provider to find out with certainty if your weight is healthy for your height.
Body Mass Index
According to the body mass index, the ideal weight range for a man who is 6-feet-2-inches-tall is 145 to 194 pounds. This would put him in the healthy BMI range of 18.5 to 24.9. At 144 pounds or less his BMI would classify him as underweight. At 195 pounds or higher, his BMI would classify him as overweight. Being either underweight or overweight poses risks to your health.
What BMI Means
BMI is simply your weight in kilograms divided by the square of your height in meters. In U.S. measurements you can divide your weight in pounds by the square of your height in inches and then multiply by a conversion factor of 703. At 6-feet-2-inches, a man's height would be 74 inches. To get his BMI this man would need to divide his weight in pounds by 74 squared and multiply by 703. For instance, this would give a 180-pound man a BMI of 23.1 -- safely within the ideal range.
Limitations
BMI is not a direct measure of body fat. This means that if you have a lot of muscle it's possible that your BMI will indicate that you are overweight. But having additional lean body mass isn't unhealthy. A better measure of health is body fat percentage, which isn't dependent on height. Men aged 20 to 39 should ideally have a body fat percentage between 8 and 19 percent. Between ages 40 and 59 the ideal range is 11 to 21 percent, and between 60 and 79 percent the ideal range is 13 to 24 percent.
Getting Professional Insight
Only a medical professional can tell you what your ideal weight should be. If your weight falls outside the ideal BMI range, talk to your physician. Your doctor can tell you if you are healthy, or if you should adjust your weight. Your doctor may perform a direct test of body fatness, such as a skinfold thickness test or bioelectrical impedance testing.