Is your cat a healthy weight?
The scales alone do not tell you much: a 5 kg moggy can be perfect or a kilo over, and an 8 kg Maine Coon can be thin. What clinics use is this nine-point scale, based on what you see and what you feel when you touch. Answer with your cat beside you.
Or pick it directly on the 1 to 9 scale
Work out its daily food → How a cat loses weight →
Why the scales are not enough
Because cats differ a lot in their frame. A five-kilo moggy can be perfect or a kilo over, and an eight-kilo Maine Coon can be thin. That is why vets use the body condition score, which looks at what you can see and feel and runs from one to nine, with five as ideal. It is the WSAVA feline scale and it takes a minute, at home, with the cat on your lap.
The three checks
First, the ribs: run your hand along its side with the pressure you would use to touch the back of your own hand. You should feel them under a thin layer of fat, without pressing. Second, the waist: looking down from above, the body should narrow a little behind the ribs. Third, the belly: in cats it is less about whether it is tucked up and more about whether there is a pouch of fat. And here is the most common trap: many cats have a fold of loose skin hanging between the back legs, the primordial pouch. It is normal, thin cats have it too, and it is not fat.
Why it matters so much in cats
Because a large share of indoor cats are overweight, and in them the extra kilos have very specific consequences. Being overweight is the main risk factor for feline diabetes, it makes arthritis worse (which cats hide very well), it is linked to cystitis and urinary problems, and it stops the cat reaching to groom its back and rear end, with the skin problems that brings. The good news is that diabetes in an overweight cat sometimes goes into remission if it loses weight.
How to slim a cat down without putting it at risk
Slowly. This is the most important difference from dogs: an overweight cat that stops eating or eats very little for a few days can develop hepatic lipidosis, a fatty liver that is serious. Never put it on a sudden diet or leave it without food so it eats what it does not like. The safe pace is around one per cent of its weight a week. You get there by weighing its food on scales, splitting it into several meals, using snuffle mats or treat-dispensing toys, and adding two or three short hunting-style play sessions a day. Ideally, do it with a plan from your vet.
When it loses weight without dieting
It is the opposite of what people expect, but it is more worrying. A cat that loses weight while eating the same or more needs to see the vet: hyperthyroidism, diabetes and kidney disease are common in mature and older cats and start in exactly this way. And a cat that loses weight because it eats less may have a sore mouth, which is very common in cats and can hardly ever be seen from outside. In both cases, the sooner the better.
An educational tool from Michipedia. It gives estimates, not a diagnosis: for anything to do with your cat’s health, ask your vet.