Ideal Weight Calculator
Find your ideal weight based on height and body type
Ideal Weight Calculator
Find your ideal weight based on height and body type
What is an Ideal Weight Calculator?
An ideal weight calculator estimates a target body weight range based on your height, sex, and body frame. Unlike BMI, which gives a single number, ideal weight formulas provide a weight range considered healthy for a given height. Multiple different formulas exist — developed independently by different medical researchers — and this calculator shows results from all of them for comparison.
The four most widely used formulas are: the Devine formula (1974, originally for drug dosing), the Robinson formula (1983), the Miller formula (1983), and the Hamwi formula (1964). Each was developed for slightly different clinical contexts and produces slightly different results. No single formula is universally accepted as the most accurate.
Important caveat: "ideal weight" is a statistical concept based on population averages, not an individual prescription. Muscle mass, bone density, body proportions, and ethnic background all affect what a healthy weight looks like for a specific person. Use this as a reference range, not a goal.
How to Use This Calculator
Frame Size Determination (Wrist Circumference)
- • Men height > 165cm: Small <16.5cm · Medium 16.5–18cm · Large >18cm
- • Women height > 158cm: Small <14cm · Medium 14–14.6cm · Large >14.6cm
- • Wrist method note: Elbow breadth method is more accurate but needs a caliper
Why 'Ideal Weight' Is a Range, Not a Target
Three of the four formulas here — Devine, Robinson, and Hamwi — were originally built for clinical purposes that have nothing to do with fitness or aesthetics: Devine's formula was designed to help doctors dose medications accurately based on estimated lean body weight, and Hamwi's was built for diabetes care calculations in the 1960s. None of them were designed as fitness or physique goals, which is worth remembering before treating the output as something to chase.
Two people of identical height can healthily differ in weight by 15kg or more depending on frame size, bone density, and how much muscle they carry — a large-framed, muscular person and a small-framed, lean person at the same height are both perfectly healthy at very different weights. This is exactly why the calculator shows a range across four formulas rather than pretending there is one correct number.
These formulas also predate modern body composition tools by decades — they were built before body fat percentage measurement and BMI were in routine use, at a time when weight alone was the only practical number doctors had. Used today, they work best as one reference point alongside body fat percentage and how you actually look and perform, not as a standalone verdict.
?Frequently Asked Questions
No single formula is definitively "most accurate" — they were all developed for different clinical purposes. The Robinson formula is most commonly cited in current medical literature. The Devine formula is still widely used for pharmaceutical drug dosing calculations. For practical purposes, looking at the range across all four formulas gives a more realistic picture than relying on any single one.