A distribution is described as mesokurtic when it has a moderate level of peakedness, similar to the normal distribution. This means that the tails of the distribution are neither too heavy nor too light, indicating a balanced spread of data around the mean. The kurtosis value for a mesokurtic distribution is typically around 3. In contrast to other types of kurtosis, such as leptokurtic (more peaked) and platykurtic (flatter), mesokurtic distributions provide a clear representation of variability in data. Understanding these characteristics is essential in fields like statistics and data analysis, where the shape of data distributions can influence interpretations and conclusions.