Taylor Lautner: natty or not?
Likely natty Jacob Black in Twilight — the teenager who added thirty pounds to keep a part
Short answer. Verdict: likely natty. At the peak physique on this page, Taylor Lautner is 5'9" (175 cm) and 174 lbs (79 kg) at roughly 9% body fat. That works out to an FFMI of 23.8, against the ~25 mark cited as the natural ceiling.
No official record settles this. What follows is opinion and analysis based on public numbers — how we judge.
The numbers (estimated)
| Peak physique | New Moon (2009), after the bulk that saved the role |
|---|---|
| Height | 5'9" (175 cm) |
| Weight | 174 lbs (79 kg) |
| Body fat | ~9% |
| FFMI | 23.8 — ~25 is the cited natural ceiling |
Era by era (estimated)
| Era | Year | Age | Weight | Evidence | Body fat | FFMI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Twilight, the first film | 2008 | 16 | 150 lbs (68 kg) | reported | ~10% | 20.3 |
| New Moon, after the bulk | 2009 | 17 | 174 lbs (79 kg) | reported | ~9% | 23.8 |
FFMI over time (estimated)
FFMI per era (values in the table above). Hover a point for details.
Note. Weights and body-fat numbers are estimates from reported figures and photographs, not measurements, and the verdict is opinion. See the methodology page for how we judge.
Taylor Lautner was sixteen and in danger of losing the part. Jacob Black gets bigger in the second Twilight book, so the actor had to get bigger too, and fast. He did, and the internet has never entirely let it go.
The numbers say this was ordinary
A teenage boy adding thirty pounds between sixteen and seventeen, while training seriously and eating deliberately, is the single most normal transformation in this genre. It is what puberty plus food does. The FFMI on this page lands comfortably below the drug-free ceiling our methodology page cites — he never got close to the line.
His own account is about the eating, not the lifting: “The most important thing was the eating side. Everybody thinks it was the actual getting in the gym, that was easy… But, the eating was pretty hard.” That is what a natural teenage bulk actually feels like, and it is not the story someone invents to cover a cycle.
Verdict
Likely-natty — a growing adolescent gained weight on purpose and ended up nowhere near a suspicious number. The timeline looks dramatic because he was on camera for both halves of it.
In their words
“The most important thing was the eating side. Everybody thinks it was the actual getting in the gym, that was easy. I was motivated, so getting in the gym was easy for me. But, the eating was pretty hard.”
Common questions
Is Taylor Lautner natty or on steroids?
This site rates Taylor Lautner as likely natty. That is an opinion drawn from public numbers, not a statement of fact: the peak physique on this page works out to an FFMI of 23.8, against the ~25 mark cited as the natural ceiling.
Has Taylor Lautner ever failed a drug test or admitted to using PEDs?
Nothing of the sort turned up in the sources on this page. Had it, the verdict would read confirmed instead of likely natty.
What is Taylor Lautner's FFMI?
About 23.8. That comes from 5'9" (175 cm) and 174 lbs (79 kg) at roughly 9% body fat, normalized to 1.8 m. Drug-free lifters in the Kouri 1995 study topped out near 25.