Ideal Body Weight Calculator

📋 What Your Result Means

For educational purposes only — not medical advice.

Important context: The term "ideal body weight" is misleading. These formulas were originally developed for pharmaceutical dosing, not as aesthetic or health targets. The Devine formula (1974), for example, was created to calculate gentamicin antibiotic doses. A more accurate framing is "reference weight for clinical calculations."

The four estimates shown represent a consensus range. Because these are population-average models based on height and sex alone, they do not account for muscle mass, bone density, or frame size. Muscular individuals, athletes, and people with naturally larger frames will often exceed these estimates while being perfectly healthy.

Frame size adjustment: Based on the Metropolitan Life Insurance tables (1983), subtract roughly 10% for a small frame or add 10% for a large frame to any formula result. This calculator applies that adjustment automatically when you select your frame size.

For general health assessment, BMI-based healthy weight ranges (18.5 to 25 BMI) may be more appropriate than these clinical reference formulas. For a fuller picture, combine this with our FFMI and Body Fat % calculators.

Want to learn more? Read our in-depth article: What Doctors Mean By Ideal Body Weight: 4 Formulas Compared →