The Body Condition Score chart published by WSAVA rates cats on a 9-point scale, laid out in three labelled bands: UNDER IDEAL (scores 1–3), IDEAL (scores 4–5), and OVER IDEAL (scores 6–9). Thus a cat at 1–3 is underweight, 4–5 is ideal, and 6–9 is overweight to obese.
As with dogs, scoring combines palpation of the ribs with visual assessment of the waist and abdominal tuck. In the ideal band (scores 4–5) the ribs are felt with only slight fat cover and a waist is seen behind the ribs. Into the overweight range the ribs become harder to feel under fat, the waist and abdominal tuck are lost, and at score 9 the ribs are Ribs not felt under heavy fat cover with extensive abdominal fat. Unlike the dog chart, the cat chart carries an explicit caveat that A body condition score of 6/9 may be acceptable in some cats, especially older cats.
Pet-food relevance: feline BCS drives ration and diet decisions; obesity is a major companion-cat welfare and nutrition issue. This topic is written in paraphrase mode (WSAVA charts are copyrighted); exact band labels, scale numbers, and the key descriptors per band are anchored verbatim. See also companion_practical_wsava_bcs_dog and the WSAVA nutrition-assessment coverage.
Source: pdf-raw/wsava/bcs_cat.txt (extracted from WSAVA chart, landed 2026-08-09).
Claims (verified C1 substrings of source_file — paraphrase mode)
Body Condition ScoreUNDER IDEALIDEALOVER IDEALWell-proportioned. Ribs felt withRibs felt with slight excess fatRibs not felt under heavy fat coverA body condition score of 6/9 may be acceptable in some cats, especially older cats