What Is the Average Weight for a 14-Year-Old?

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The teenage years are a critical, formative time that can have a big impact on lifelong health. So you may wonder, what is the average weight for a 14-year-old? In this article, we’ll discuss average weights and healthy weights for 14-year-old girls and boys, as well as what to do if you are a teen and worried that you need to lose weight or struggle with body image.

 

What Is the Average Weight for a 14-Year-Old?

The CDC has compiled comprehensive charts showing percentiles for height and age and for weight and age for 14-year-old boys and 14-year-old girls. This means that you can look up how your weight and how your height compare to other 14-year-olds. For example, a 5th-percentile weight number would mean that you weigh more than only 5% of 14-year-olds of your gender. The 50th percentile approximately corresponds to the average as it means that about half of 14-year-olds weigh less than you and about half weigh more.

We’ll go over the percentile charts for weight for 14-year-old girls and for 14-year-old boys. We’ve also included height percentile tables because height and weight are somewhat related. Taller people tend to weigh more (as compared to a shorter person with a similar physique) because the extra bone and muscle it takes to make a taller person has mass! So if you are in a higher percentile for height, it makes sense that you would also be in a higher percentile for weight.

 

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Hey, bones are heavy.

 

Average Weight for a 14-Year-Old Girl

What’s the average weight of a 14-year-old girl? Well, based on data from the CDC, we can say that the average weight for 14-year-old females would be about 108 lbs, the 50th percentile number. (The number might be slightly different if the distribution of weights in the population is skewed, but it should be close to this.)

The CDC has a percentile chart for height and weight for girls aged 2 to 20. However, this chart is quite difficult to read, so we’ve translated the data into a table that’s easier to parse.

 

14-Year-Old Female Weight Percentiles

Percentile Weight (Pounds)
5th 84 lbs
10th 88 lbs
25th 96 lbs
50th 108 lbs
75th 124 lbs
90th 143 lbs
95th 158 lbs

As you can see, the percentile data given by the CDC ranges from 84 lbs at the 5th percentile to 158 lbs at the 95th percentile.

However, it’s important to note that these percentiles don’t really tell us what a healthy weight is for a particular 14-year-old. Depending on their height and some other factors, a 14-year-old at any of these percentile weights could be either a healthy or an unhealthy weight.

One major factor in determining whether a particular weight percentile is “healthy” or not is height. We would expect shorter 14-year-old girls to be at lower weight percentiles and taller 14-year-old girls to be at higher weight percentiles, in general. (This doesn’t mean that if you are at a lower height percentile and higher weight percentile that there is anything wrong with you! These are just population-level trends and they don’t say anything about you as a person.)

The approximate average height for 14-year-old girls would be 5 ft 3.5 inches, the 50th percentile height.

Here’s a quick table showing height percentiles for 14-year-old girls.

 

14-Year-Old Girl Height Percentiles

Percentile Height (Inches)
5th 59 (4 ft 11 inches)
10th 60 (5 ft)
25th 61.5 (5 ft 1.5 inches)
50th 63.5 (5 ft 3.5 inches)
75th 65 (5 ft 5 inches)
90th 66.5 (5 ft 6.5 inches)
95th 67.5 (5 ft 7.5 inches)

 

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Do you still have a ways to grow?

 

Average Weight for a 14-Year-Old Boy

What’s the average weight for a 14-year-old boy? According to the CDC data, the 50th percentile or approximate average weight for a 14-year-old boy is 112 lbs. This is 4 pounds heavier than the 50th percentile for 14-year-old girls—not a huge difference, but still a difference.

Just like the girl chart, the CDC’s height and weight percentile chart for boys 2-20 is very hard to read. So we’ve converted that chart into a much clearer table.

 

14-Year-Old Male Weight Percentiles

Percentile Weight (Pounds)
5th 84 lbs
10th 90 lbs
25th 99 lbs
50th 112 lbs
75th 128 lbs
90th 147 lbs
95th 158 lbs

The percentile data for boys ranges from 84 lbs at the 5th percentile to 158 lbs at the 95th percentile marker. This means 90% of 14-year-old boys weight between 84 lbs and 158 lbs. Interestingly, the 5th and 95th percentiles are the same for boys and girls at this age (84 lbs and 158 lbs). Some of the more major changes in how boys and girls are built haven’t taken place yet in a lot of people at this age, so this isn’t too surprising.

As we mentioned for the girls’ weight chart, it’s very important to remember that these weight percentiles don’t really tell us much about whether a 14-year-old boy is healthy or not. Depending on height and some other factors, like body fat percentage and bone density, a 147-lb 14-year-old boy could be perfectly healthy and a 112-lb boy could be underweight.

In general, we would expect shorter boys to weigh less and taller boys to weigh more. Per CDC data, the average height for 14-year-old boys is about 5 ft 4.5 inches.

Here’s a table showing height percentiles for 14-year-old boys.

 

14-Year-Old Boy Height Percentiles

Percentile Height (Inches)
5th 59 inches (4 ft 11 inches)
10th 60.25 (5 ft .25 inches)
25th 62.25 (5 ft 2.25 inches)
50th 64.5 (5 ft 4.5 inches)
75th 66.5 (5 ft 6.5 inches)
90th 68.5 (5 ft 8.5 inches)
95th 69.5 (5 ft 9.5 inches)

As we can see, 14-year-old boys have the same 5th percentile height as 14-year-old girls—4 ft 11 inches. But their 50th percentile height is an inch taller, at 5 ft 4.5 inches, and their 95th percentile height is 2 inches taller, at 5 ft 9.5 inches.

If you are at a lower height percentile and higher weight percentile, don’t worry! It doesn’t necessarily mean that you are unhealthy. This depends on lots of other factors.

 

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What height percentile do you think these guys are in?

 

How Much Should a 14-Year-Old Weigh to Be Healthy?

You know the weight percentiles for 14-year-old girls and 14-year-old boys now. But how much is a 14-year-old supposed to weigh? The truth is that there’s a wide range of potential healthy weights for a 14-year-old.

14-year-olds are at a variety of different developmental and growth stages. Some 14-year-olds have barely started puberty, while others may be much closer to adult physical maturity. This means that any two perfectly healthy 14-year-olds at different stages may have very different distributions of muscle and fat in their bodies, not to mention totally different heights. This means these two 14-year-olds might have very different weights but both be perfectly healthy.

There’s nothing wrong with being in any particular stage of body development at age 14. This variation between teenagers is totally normal. All of this normal variation in development just means that looking at the average weight of a 14-year-old or weight percentiles for 14-year-olds doesn’t tell us whether someone is a healthy weight or not.

Luckily, the CDC has also developed a tool to better assess healthy weight as opposed to average weight: special BMI percentile charts for 14-year-old boys and girls. These charts tell you how your BMI compares to all the other 14-year-olds out there.

BMI is a statistic that compares your weight and your height to help describe your weight status. These CDC charts allow you to compare your BMI to the BMI of the rest of the boys or girls your age and suggests whether you might be underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese. If your BMI is below the 5th percentile, you’re considered underweight for your age. In the 5th to the 85th percentile BMI, you’re considered a normal weight. If you’re in the 85th to 95th percentile, you’re considered overweight. You are considered obese if you have a BMI above the 95th percentile for your age. As you can see, the vast majority of 14-year-olds—80%—will fall into the “normal weight” range for BMI based on this system.

The BMI has some limits, which we will discuss below. But this is a decent way to get a very general, ad-hoc idea of how healthy your weight is.

Of course, to use these charts, you first need to calculate your BMI. If you know your height and weight, you can use an online BMI calculator like this one from the CDC or this one from Baylor College of Medicine (both of these also tell you your BMI percentile).

It’s fairly simple to calculate your BMI manually if you want to. If you know your weight in kilograms and your height in meters, you can just divide your weight in kg by your height in meters squared. So if I weigh 63.5 kg and am 1.7 meters tall, I would punch 63.5/(1.7 x 1.7) into my calculator, for a BMI of 21.63.

If I don’t want to mess around with metric conversion, I can also do a little shortcut and divide my weight in pounds by my height in inches squared and then multiply that by the conversion factor of 703. So if I weigh 140 lbs and I’m 67 inches tall, I can calculate 140/(67 x 67) and then multiple that by 703 to get 21.93. (The numbers aren’t exactly the same because of rounding).

Once you have your BMI number, you can see where you fall on the percentile chart compared to other 14-year-old girls or boys.

 

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You might need to grab your calculator.

 

How Much Should a 14-Year-Old Girl Weigh? BMI Chart

The CDC has a BMI percentile chart for girls aged 2 to 20. However, it’s very hard to read, so we made a table showing the percentile ranges and BMI numbers for 14-year-old girls.

 

14-Year-Old Girls BMI Chart

Percentile Range BMI
Less than 5th percentile (Underweight) Less than 15.8
5th percentile to 85th percentile (Normal weight) 15.8-23.3
More than 85th percentile to 95th percentile (Overweight) 23.3-27.2
Greater than 95th percentile (Obese) Greater than 27.2

As you can see, there’s a wide range of normal weight BMIs for 14-year-old girls according to this chart, from 15.8 to 23.3. And even if your BMI is above or below the healthy range, that doesn’t necessarily mean your weight is unhealthy for you—see below where we discuss the limits of BMI.

 

How Much Should a 14-Year-Old Boy Weigh? BMI Chart

The CDC also has a BMI percentile chart for boys 2 to 20 years old that is very hard to read. So here’s our easy-to-read table showing percentiles and BMI ranges for 14-year-old boys.

 

14-Year-Old Boys BMI Chart

Percentile Range BMI
Less than 5th percentile (Underweight) Less than 16
5th percentile to 85th percentile (Normal weight) 16-22.6
More than 85th percentile to 95th percentile (Overweight) 22.6-26
Greater than 95th percentile (Obese) Greater than 26

Based on these percentiles, a 14-year-old boy is considered underweight if his BMI is less than 16 and overweight if his BMI is greater than 22.6. Since girls are considered overweight if their BMI is greater than 23.3, we can conclude that based on this data it’s very normal for girls to weigh a little more relative to their height at this age.

Once again, if you fall outside of the “normal” BMI range according to this chart, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s something wrong with your weight. The BMI isn’t a perfect measure of health.

 

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However, these puppies are perfect.

 

Limitations of BMI

These BMI charts give us a better idea of whether a 14-year-old has a healthy weight than the average weight for a 14-year-old boy or girl because BMI takes both weight and height into account. However, BMI has limitations and is not a definitive measure of whether your weight is healthy is not.

BMI was originally designed to be a population measure of weight status, not an individual one. A mathematician in the 1800s created BMI as a way to estimate the percentage of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese people in a larger population—not to make a health determination for individuals.

On the individual level, BMI doesn’t take body composition into account at all. Most of your body weight is comprised of bone, muscle, and fat. But the ratio of bone to muscle to fat actually makes a big difference your health status. Muscle is denser than fat, and bone is denser still. So someone with healthy, strong bones and a lot of muscle may have a high body weight but still be very healthy. This could cause them to have an “overweight” or even “obese” BMI even if they have very low body fat! Similarly, someone with a “normal” BMI could have low-density bones and very low muscle mass relative to their body fat. Their BMI would say that they are healthy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are.

Additionally, in spite of how the BMI is framed, there’s no true hard cutoff between weight categories. If I gain three pounds and then move from the “normal” to the “overweight” category, has anything significant really changed? Not really. So maintaining hard-cutoff numbers between underweight, normal weight, overweight, and obese categories is overly reductive.

With that said, BMI can be a useful preliminary tool. Some researchers posit that BMI is a correct measure of individual body fat status about 80% of the time.

So how much should a 14-year-old weigh? How much you should weight when you are 14 depends on you personally—there’s not one specific number or range or that describes how much a 14-year-old should weigh.

The bottom line is that you should be consulting with a primary care physician on your health status, including your weight status. They can help you better interpret your own BMI in light of other important health factors. And if you do need to make lifestyle changes, they will be able to guide you in the right direction.

 

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You can’t tell by looking at him, but this kitty is a champion powerlifter packed with muscle!

 

Help! I’m 14 and I’m Worried About My Weight

If you are over or under the average weight for a 14-year-old boy or girl, you might feel worried about your weight even if it’s totally normal. A little bit of body self-consciousness is typical at this age. Your body is changing a lot, and so are the bodies of your friends and peers. You may find yourself comparing your own body to unrealistic, retouched images you see in the media.

14-year-old girls may feel particular anxiety about becoming fat. However, it’s important to note that it’s actually very normal and healthy for a girl’s body fat percentage to increase as she goes through puberty. Adult women have more body fat than young girls, and this is completely normal and expected, even though it may feel very strange to look in the mirror and see a changing body.

14-year-old boys may feel particularly anxious about seeming scrawny or unmuscular. Note that teen boys normally gain height a few years before they start getting bulkier frames in their late teens and early twenties.

If you are feeling bad about your weight or your body generally, here are some things you can do:

 

Form Healthy Habits

Whether you are at the average weight of a 14-year-old or not, and whatever your BMI, your teen years are a great time to build healthy eating and exercise habits.

Healthy eating involves eating reasonable portion sizes, consuming lots of fruits and vegetables, preparing healthy snacks, drinking lots of water, and limiting your intake of foods that have lots of sugar and/or unhealthy fat. Healthy eating does not involve putting yourself on a hyper-restrictive diet or skipping meals.

Similarly, cultivating active hobbies that you enjoy like jogging, cycling, playing sports, martial arts, and dancing will help you get enough activity to stay healthy. Choosing activities that you find fun will turn exercise into a relaxing pastime instead of a burdensome obligation.

You can read more on building healthy habits to help you have the healthiest, happiest body possible at Scarleteen.

 

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Want to feel healthier? Load up on those veggies.

 

Develop Media Savvy

There is not a lot of diversity in the bodies that we see on television, in movies, and in magazines. Most of the female bodies we see are white, slender hourglass shapes. Most of the male bodies we see are white, tall, and muscular with little body fat. There’s not very much ethnic, size, shape, or gender diversity. So if you compare yourself to what you see in the media with the idea that you should conform to this narrow standard, you may feel really bad about yourself.

It’s important to remember that many celebrities are essentially paid to look a certain way. They work out for hours every day. They pay nutritionists, trainers, stylists, and makeup artists to keep them looking incredible whenever there’s a camera around. Additionally, many of these people are further retouched with editing software before they appear in media. Celebrities themselves have come out and said that they don’t even look like many photoshopped images of themselves.

Developing media savvy can help you maintain a realistic sense of the normal variety of human bodies in this world. Sites like About Face and Adios Barbie offer resources on body diversity and scrutinizing media that promote unrealistic and narrow standards of beauty.

Hollywood is not very diverse. However, you can also actively seek out diverse media of all types to consume. Studies show that looking at diverse bodies helps women feel more comfortable with body size diversity. So looking at bodies of all shapes, sizes, and colors can help you to feel more comfortable with your own body and the bodies of others.

 

Talk to a Doctor or Expert

As we have discussed earlier in this article, it’s important to listen to your doctor’s recommendations about your health in general and your weight in particular. If a medical professional tells you that your weight is fine, it almost certainly is.

If you find yourself skipping lots of meals, throwing up food, bingeing, exercising excessively, and/or hating your body, talk to an expert like a doctor, therapist, or nutritionist. They can help you work on your relationship to both food and your body and connect you with the treatment and care that you need.

You can also call an eating disorder hotline to discuss your situation and figure out a plan to get help. Note that both boys and girls can have eating disorders and body image issues.

 

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There’s help out there if you need it.

 

What’s the Average Weight for a 14-Year-Old? Final Thoughts

So what is the average weight for a 14-year-old? The average weight for 14-year-old females is about 108 lbs. The average weight of 14-year-old boys is about 112 lbs.

However, the average weight of 14-year-old girls and boys doesn’t actually tell us much about what a healthy weight is for a particular 14-year old girl or boy. We can get a slightly better idea by calculating BMI (body mass index) and comparing that number to other 14-year-olds to get a percentile. Most 14-year-olds will be considered a normal weight under this scheme. Unfortunately, BMI isn’t a perfect measure. So this is not really the definitive word on whether you are a healthy weight or not.

So how much should a 14-year-old weigh? Ultimately, this is something you can only figure out in consultation with your doctor. However, if you are feeling bad about your body, here are some things you can do:

  • Form healthy eating and exercise habits to help you feel better and stay healthy throughout adulthood
  • Develop media savvy to help you get a more realistic sense of what healthy bodies look like
  • Talk to a doctor, therapist, or other expert, especially if you are engaging in extreme dieting or exercise behaviors or feel hatred for your own body.

Remember, there’s not one magic number that you should weigh as a 14-year-old. You don’t need to aim for being the average weight of a 14-year-old. You just need to focus on being the healthiest and happiest you possible!

 

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Happy like this dog!

 

What’s Next?

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Curious about other aspects of the human body? We can tell you how women pee, what green poop means, and what side of your body your heart is on. We can also tell you if a 6.5 inch penis is big or small.

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