Ideal Weight Calculator
See the healthy weight range for your height, and what the four classic ideal body weight formulas give.
What is an ideal weight?
There's no single perfect weight for a given height — healthy people of the same height vary a lot in muscle, bone, and build. What research can give is a range linked to lower health risk. This calculator shows that range, based on body mass index (BMI), alongside four "ideal body weight" formulas that doctors and pharmacists still use, mostly to work out medication doses.
How it's calculated
The healthy weight range is the weight at which your BMI would be between 18.5 and 24.9, the range the World Health Organization classes as a normal weight for adults:
Weight = BMI × height (m)²
The four ideal body weight formulas start from a set weight at 5 feet (152.4 cm) and add a fixed amount for each inch above that. The Devine formula (1974), the most widely used, is:
Men: 50 kg + 2.3 kg per inch over 5 ft · Women: 45.5 kg + 2.3 kg per inch over 5 ft
Robinson (1983), Miller (1983), and Hamwi (1964) follow the same pattern with different numbers. Robinson and Miller were fitted to later height–weight data, and Miller gives the highest weights for shorter people.
How to use this calculator
Choose Metric or US units, enter your sex and height, and press Calculate ideal weight. You'll see the healthy weight range for your height and the result of each formula. Want to know where your current weight sits? The BMI Calculator shows your BMI category.
Getting to a healthier weight
If you want to move toward the range, the TDEE & Maintenance Calorie Calculator gives a calorie target and the Weight Loss Timeline Calculator shows how long it could take. Strength training while you lose weight helps you keep muscle, so more of what you lose is fat — the 3D workout guides show the main lifts.
Limitations
BMI and the ideal weight formulas look only at height and sex. They don't know how much of your weight is muscle, so muscular people often land above the range while being lean. The formulas were also built from limited data, mostly on adults of average build, and aren't meant for children, older adults, or people who are pregnant. Use the numbers as a rough guide, not a target you must hit. See the Disclaimer for details.
Read the science
- Measuring Body Fat: What the Tape, the Scale, and the Scanner Tell You →
Why BMI misses so much, how body fat is measured — from underwater weighing to DEXA scans and the Navy tape method — how accurate each method is, and what a healthy range looks like.
References
The formulas and figures on this page come from these sources. Our Editorial Policy explains how they're chosen and checked.
- Healthy BMI range (18.5–24.9): World Health Organization. (2000). Obesity: Preventing and managing the global epidemic. Report of a WHO consultation (WHO Technical Report Series No. 894). Link
- Devine formula: Devine, B. J. (1974). Gentamicin therapy. Drug Intelligence & Clinical Pharmacy, 8(11), 650–655. doi:10.1177/106002807400801104
- Robinson formula: Robinson, J. D., Lupkiewicz, S. M., Palenik, L., Lopez, L. M., & Ariet, M. (1983). Determination of ideal body weight for drug dosage calculations. American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 40(6), 1016–1019. doi:10.1093/ajhp/40.6.1016
- Miller formula: Miller, D. R., Carlson, J. D., Lloyd, B. J., & Day, B. J. (1983). Determining ideal body weight (and mass) [Letter]. American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 40(10), 1622, 1625. doi:10.1093/ajhp/40.10.1622a
- Hamwi formula: Hamwi, G. J. (1964). Therapy: Changing dietary concepts. In T. S. Danowski (Ed.), Diabetes mellitus: Diagnosis and treatment (Vol. 1, pp. 73–78). American Diabetes Association.
- History of the ideal body weight formulas: Pai, M. P., & Paloucek, F. P. (2000). The origin of the “ideal” body weight equations. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 34(9), 1066–1069. doi:10.1345/aph.19381