Ideal Weight Calculator
Four classic ideal-weight formulas side by side, plus the healthy weight range for your height.
There is no single ideal weight, which is why this calculator shows four answers rather than one. The formulas below were written for clinical uses — drug dosing, ventilator settings — long before anyone used them on the internet, and they disagree with each other by several kilograms. The BMI-based range at the bottom is the one most worth paying attention to.
How this is worked out
Devine (1974) is the one hospitals still use for drug dosing: 50 kg + 2.3 kg for each inch over 5 feet for men, 45.5 kg + 2.3 kg per inch for women. Robinson (1983) and Miller (1983) are refits of the same idea against better data, and Hamwi (1964) is the oldest of the four. All of them are linear in height above five feet and none of them mean much for people much shorter than that.
The healthy-weight range shown underneath is simply the weight that puts your BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 at your height — a band rather than a point, which is a more honest way to answer the question. If you are using the Asian-Indian cut-offs elsewhere on the site, the equivalent band is 18.5 to 22.9.
This calculator runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is transmitted to us, saved on our servers, or shared with anyone.
Common questions
Why do the four formulas disagree?
They were fitted to different populations at different times for different purposes. The spread between them — usually three to six kilograms — is a fair picture of how imprecise the idea of an "ideal" weight really is.
Should I aim for my ideal weight?
Aim for the healthy range instead, and for how you feel and function inside it. Most of the health benefit of losing weight arrives in the first five to ten per cent, long before any target number.