Ideal weight calculator

Where "ideal weight" formulas come from

The formulas on this page were created by doctors and researchers between the 1960s and 1980s, mostly to dose medicines or to set a quick clinical reference. Each starts from a base weight at 5 feet and adds a fixed amount per inch above it. They give slightly different answers because they were fitted to different data. None of them accounts for frame size, muscle or age.

Worked example

For a man 5 ft 10 in (178 cm):

• Devine: 50 + 2.3 × 10.1 = 73.2 kg (161 lb)
• Robinson: 71.1 kg
• Miller: 70.4 kg
• Hamwi: 75.2 kg

For a woman 5 ft 5 in, the formulas give 125–132 lb.

A better target: the BMI range

Most health guidance today uses a range rather than a single number: the weights that give a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9. For the man above that is 58.6–78.9 kg (129–174 lb). Within that range, waist size, fitness and how you feel matter more than hitting an exact figure.

The page converts your height to inches over 5 feet and applies each formula for your sex, then converts the result to pounds if you use US units. The BMI range is the weight that gives a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 at your height. Heights below 130 cm or above 230 cm are outside the range the formulas were designed for.