What is a Healthy Weight for a Cat?
While there is something endearing about a chubby cat there are no health benefits to being overweight. A significant issue for cats is an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes mellitus, which interestingly, is not a common issue for overweight dogs. Body condition scoring is a useful tool although trickier in cats than in dogs. To keep it simple the width across the lumbar spine (between the ribs and pelvis) should be narrower than the depth of the trunk. The trunk of a cat with healthy weight would be 1.5 to 1.75 times as deep as it is wide. Some cats have loose skin and subcuteous belly fat which makes the depth more difficult to estimate. The points of the vertebrae along the spine and the top of the pelvis should be felt with gentle pressure and not obvious. If your cat is getting wide across the back and looking more of a square shape than a rectangle it is very likely they are overweight. Putting a cat on a diet can be challenging so p...