If the character is of average height then there's no real need to give specific measurements. If the height of the person isn't important to the story then I don't think it's necessary to give specifics. But if it is - if the person is particularly tall or short - then I really don't see how you can get away with not giving particulars, simply because one person's perception of tall can be very different to another's. For example, my girlfriend is 4'11" and she considers anyone about 5'10" as tall, where as I, being 6 foot tall and two brothers taller than I am, and a sister nearly as tall, consider that pretty average and not tall at all. It would be better if you could find a creative way to give measurements, such as magusfang described, then that would be better than giving a laundry list of statistics. Also, if both the height and the weight of the person is important for the reader to know then you could try to break up the information given to the reader. For example, provide details of the person's height at first, mention that the person is fat but wait until a bit later in the story to give details, when a more natural way to provide it occurs.
But there's no hard and fast rule of it. I've read professional, published, successful authors that have no problem providing those kind of details. Personally, I like to know details, but everyone's different, and you can't please everyone.
Oh, and studies have suggested that the number of adult males that have measured their penis at some point vastly outnumbers those who haven't.
