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Is 1500 calories enough for a teenage girl to maintain her weight?

Weight: 110lbs

Height: 5'8

Age: 15 years, 4 months

Activity level: 3-4 hours of moderate exercise every week. Varies greatly day to day, but 3-4 hours is generally the end total. (I.E., one day, I might get 10 minutes, 50 minutes the next day.)

Waist: 25 inches

Body fat: 16-17%

Thanks for your help. ^_^

If it helps any, I've struggled with anorexia (purging and restrictive) and orthorexia in the past, and I've recently lost 21lbs from my overweight weight of 131lbs, where I had a 33 inch waist and was miserable. If you wish, you can read some of my previous posts to learn more. :)

Whoa, that was quick! Thank you! But I'm not underweight. I'm at a healthy weight for my height and everything. BMI 16.9. :/

From here:

A 68-inch tall, 110-pound, 15-year-old girl has a body mass index (BMI) of 16.8, which is at the 8th percentile for age. Although being thin could be perfectly normal for this girl, she could potentially be at risk of being underweight, particularly if she has recently lost weight or has stopped gaining weight.

A healthy weight range for this particular girl would be from about 114-pounds to 158-pounds.

So you are below the healthy weight range, and as you get older, you'd be expected to gain weight, since 16.8 will not continue to be even close to healthy as you get older.

Given that you have a history of eating disorders, all of the "this could be normal" parts of the above quote do not apply to you.

Also from that page, a completely inactive 15 year old girl with your stats would burn 1800 calories to maintain her weight. So no, 1500 would not be enough to maintain. You say you do moderate activity, which means that you should be eating at least 2500, but as volley said, you should be gaining, not maintaining. So probably 2700-3000, at least.

Original Post by prettylittleliar15:

Whoa, that was quick! Thank you! But I'm not underweight. I'm at a healthy weight for my height and everything. BMI 16.9. :/

You are actually quite a bit underweight.

1,500 calories is far too low for you. You are growing and developing. You should be eating a lot more.