06/02/2025
Feline Body Condition Scoring: How does your cat score?
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➡️Obesity is currently one of the greatest health and welfare problems facing domestic cats around the world. Multiple published studies suggest that in developed countries, anywhere from 11.5 to 63% of pet cats are overweight or obese.
➡️78% of Veterinary professionals have seen an increase in obesity
➡️ As owners it can be particularly difficult to be objective when assessing our pets so it's important to get hands on with Body Condition Scoring so we can make changes to improve our pets body condition if they are becoming overweight.
❌ Cats can be rather hard to body condition score just by looking at them, equally getting accurate pictures that demonstrate effectively cats body condition scores can prove challenging!
✅ Attend your veterinary practice for weight checks at least once a year when they have their annual veterinary health check.
If your cat has gained weight (inappropriately) and is a BCS of 6 or above (when using a 1-9 system) you need to take immediate action to reduce weight in a careful and considered manner.
✅ During weight loss we want to continue to encourage and maintain good musculature on our pets. This includes encouraging your more docile or sedentary cats to start some fun play and enrichment exercises.
✅ Seek advice from veterinary professionals regarding weight loss tips. Many practices offer weight clinics with their Registered Veterinary Nurses to help guide and support you.
➡️ How to Body Condition Score
✅ Ribs
Getting hands on with cats is very important! Their fluff can be deceiving! You want to feel ribs with only slight fat covering.
✅ Abdominal fat pad
Although some cats have a much more pronounced primordial pouch that can droop low, when getting hands on we want minimal abdominal fat pad, ideally we want to have minimal protrusion here.
✅ Waist
Look from above. Can we see a lovely waist on our cats that tucks inwards like an hour glass after the chest?
and says:
💬Obesity is a real problem in the feline population and according to vets, 44% of cats are overweight or obese. It’s important to recognise that not only are there several health risks associated with obesity in cats e.g., diabetes, cystitis, and non-allergic skin disease, but that it can seriously affect their emotional health too.
Obese cats are less likely to be able to perform normal feline behaviours, such as grooming, playing/hunting, accessing places of safety, scratching and access to toileting areas both inside and outside. This can have a detrimental affect on their welfare, causing boredom, anxiety, frustration or even aggression. It’s also worth bearing in mind that to the untrained eye obesity can mask a loss in muscle condition, which can be an indicator of poor health.
✅If we use a BCS of 1-9 we are able to estimate ideal body weight by looking at where they score on the BCS
BCS 6 - 10% overweight
BCS 7 -20%
BCS 8- 30%
BCS 9- 40%
And so on....
This allows us to get a rough idea of ideal body weight which can help when working out how much to feed our cats. This 'ideal weight' may change throughout your weight loss journey if we are also gaining muscle as we lose the fat. Check out these videos on how to body condition score a cat:
https://www.purinainstitute.com/centresquare/nutritional-and-clinical-assessment-tools/how-to-perform-a-body-condition-assessment-cat
