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Ideal weight calculator
The healthy weight range for your height, and what the classic formulas say.
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Start freeA range, not one number
There is no single ideal weight. The most useful answer is the healthy range for your height, a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9, the range the World Health Organization uses. A muscular person sits higher in it and a slight one lower, and both are healthy.
The four formulas (Hamwi 1964, Devine 1974, Robinson 1983, Miller 1983) were made to work out medicine doses, not to set goals. They are shown because people look for them, and because their spread shows how much "ideal" depends on the method.
Better guides than the scale
Your waist says more about health than your weight: under half your height is a good sign. If you train, your body fat tells you even more: try the body fat calculator.
Questions
What is the ideal weight for my height?
The healthy range is the weight that gives a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9. For 170 cm that is about 53 to 72 kg; for 5 ft 10 in, about 129 to 174 lb.
Why do the formulas give different numbers?
Each was fitted to different groups of people decades ago, to work out medicine doses. None of them knows your muscle or your frame.
I am above the range but muscular. Is that a problem?
Not necessarily. BMI and these formulas cannot see muscle. Your waist and your body fat are better guides.
Sources
- World Health Organization. Obesity: preventing and managing the global epidemic. WHO Technical Report Series 894; 2000.
- Pai MP, Paloucek FP. The origin of the "ideal" body weight equations. Ann Pharmacother. 2000;34(9):1066-1069.