ReckonBoxHow much should you weigh?
A healthy weight is a range for your height, running from a BMI of 18.5 to 25, not a single figure. For a 5 foot 10 inch adult that band runs from about 129 to 174 pounds. Six classic ideal-weight formulas land inside it and disagree with each other by roughly 17 pounds, which tells you most of what you need to know about how precise any of them are.
This calculator gives you three things: the healthy range from your height, the weight at whichever target BMI you pick inside that band, and what each formula returns. Enter a current weight in the options and it adds adjusted body weight, the figure clinicians use when dosing medication in heavier patients.
The formulas were written for drug dosing
Ideal body weight equations were built to make medication dosage calculations easier, not to describe how anyone should look. calculator.net, the top-ranked result for this search, says so directly and adds that the concept has nothing to do with appearance. Omni names a concrete use, computing immunoglobulin doses. MDCalc, the clinical reference, applies ideal body weight to set ventilator tidal volume and to dose drugs, and warns readers to confirm any dose with a pharmacy, because some medications dose on ideal weight and others on actual weight.
ClinCalc lists the full working set: drug dosing, mechanical ventilator settings, nutritional requirement assessment, and estimating renal function. Four jobs, all of them clinical, none of them about a goal weight.
That origin is the most useful fact on this entire search and almost nobody leads with it. MDCalc, the one tool clinicians actually reach for, carries no warning whatsoever about treating its output as a personal weight goal.
| Formula | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Hamwi (1964) | 48.0 kg + 2.7 kg per inch over 5 ft | 45.5 kg + 2.2 kg per inch |
| Devine (1974) | 50.0 kg + 2.3 kg per inch over 5 ft | 45.5 kg + 2.3 kg per inch |
| Robinson (1983) | 52 kg + 1.9 kg per inch over 5 ft | 49 kg + 1.7 kg per inch |
| Miller (1983) | 56.2 kg + 1.41 kg per inch over 5 ft | 53.1 kg + 1.36 kg per inch |
| Broca | height in cm minus 100 | 85% of (height in cm minus 100) |
| Lorentz | (cm - 100) - (cm - 150) / 4 | (cm - 100) - (cm - 150) / 2 |
At 5 foot 10, Broca returns the highest figure and Miller the lowest, 17 pounds apart. Omni calls Devine the most medically validated of the group, and it is the one medicine actually uses, yet clinical references note it lacks a scientific basis. It survived because it was simple and everyone agreed to be wrong in the same direction.
Why a range beats a single number
A healthy weight is a band because bodies at the same height are not interchangeable. Two people at 5 foot 10 can both be well at 135 and at 170 pounds, since muscle is denser than fat and frames differ. Six formulas disagreeing by 17 pounds is not a flaw to resolve by picking the best one; it's the evidence that no single number was ever available.
Set the target BMI field wherever you want to sit inside the band. That's the only control here that answers the question people actually arrive with, and none of the ranked competitors offers it.
If you want one figure from the six anyway, MiniWebTool gives the sanest recipe on this search: average all of them, then read that average against the BMI band. The average absorbs the disagreement between equations, and the band tells you whether it lands anywhere sensible.
The published bands differ slightly too. NHLBI gives 18.5 to 24.9, the American Heart Association 18.5 to 25, and calculator.net converts the WHO band of 18.5 to 25. A pound or two of boundary, worth knowing before you agonise over a decimal.
Does age change your ideal weight?
For adults, no. MedicalNewsToday states it flatly: age is not a factor in BMI for adults, and enters only for children aged 2 to 19. The formulas and the healthy band use height and sex alone, so a 25 year old and a 55 year old of the same height share a target.
People search for weight by height and age constantly, so the demand reflects a real belief. The math behind every adult chart ignores the birthday.
What does shift with age is what the same weight is made of. MANA, a physician group publishing one of the height charts on this search, puts it precisely: muscle mass commonly declines while body fat percentage rises even when the number on the scale holds, and slightly higher BMI values don't carry the same risk in older adults. AARP points at the same finding from the other side, that roughly 25 to 28 tracks with lower mortality after 65. Two sources, one conclusion: past 65 the band drifts up and the composition underneath it matters more than the figure.
Healthy weight by height
Straight from the BMI band of 18.5 to 25, the same math the calculator runs for your exact height.
| Height | Healthy range |
|---|---|
| 5 ft 2 in | 101 to 137 lb |
| 5 ft 4 in | 108 to 146 lb |
| 5 ft 6 in | 115 to 155 lb |
| 5 ft 8 in | 122 to 164 lb |
| 5 ft 10 in | 129 to 174 lb |
| 6 ft 0 in | 136 to 184 lb |
One number puts that table in proportion. Disabled World reports measured US adult means of BMI 29.4 for men and 30.0 for women, which sits above every range in the column on the right. The average American adult is heavier than the healthy band, so reading yourself against the chart and landing outside it puts you with the majority.
When BMI reads you wrong
Dense muscle is the classic misread. The American Heart Association notes that well-trained people can post a high BMI while carrying very little body fat, and points to waist circumference, skinfold thickness or direct body-fat measurement as better tools for them. MedicalNewsToday raises waist-to-height ratio as another check worth running.
Bupa lists ethnicity, age, sex and muscle mass as factors that shift what a healthy weight looks like for an individual. It publishes no ethnicity-specific thresholds, and neither does any other page fetched for this build, so we don't either; inventing cut-offs to look thorough would be worse than the omission.
Frame size, and how to apply it yourself
Frame size is the adjustment that turns one number for your height into a band for your build, and two of the ten calculators checked for this page take it as an input.
FatCalc and MiniWebTool both size the frame from wrist circumference and both apply the same correction: a small frame takes 10 percent off the formula result, a medium frame leaves it alone, and a large frame adds 10 percent. Measure your wrist just below the bone and compare it against their reference tables, which vary the cut-offs by sex and height.
This calculator doesn't ask for it, so apply it by hand if you want it. On a 5 foot 10 man whose formulas centre near 160 pounds, a small frame reads about 144 and a large frame about 176. That 32 pound swing is nearly double the 17 pounds the six formulas disagree by, which is worth sitting with: the input none of them takes moves the answer more than the equation you pick.
Treat the correction as a rough one. Neither source shows a validation study behind the 10 percent, and wrist circumference is a loose proxy for skeletal build.
Adjusted body weight and when it matters
Adjusted body weight is ideal weight plus 40 percent of the gap between actual and ideal weight. Fat tissue changes how a drug spreads through the body, so dosing a heavier patient on raw weight can overshoot and on ideal weight can undershoot. Pharmacists split the difference with the 0.4 factor.
ClinCalc adds the part most pages skip, which is when the adjustment starts applying: once actual weight passes 120 percent of ideal. Above 130 percent it names a second figure, nutritional body weight, which uses a gentler 0.25 factor for assessing feeding requirements. MDCalc, the clinical reference ranking at the top of this search, gives neither the threshold nor the factor.
Both are dosing figures with no bearing on a goal weight, and adjusted weight appears here only when you enter a current weight above your ideal.
Where these numbers fall short
Height and sex are thin inputs for a question this personal. The formulas can't see a powerlifter's muscle or a tall person's light frame, so an athlete often reads as overweight and a small-boned person as underweight.
Children and pregnancy are out of scope. Omni excludes both, and children are scored against growth percentiles because they're still growing.
Results are estimates, not medical advice. For a weight target built around your health, talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian. To see where your current weight sits, use the BMI calculator, and for the muscle-versus-fat picture, the body fat calculator.
Frequently asked questions
What is a healthy weight for my height? A healthy weight is a range rather than a figure, running from a BMI of 18.5 to 25 for your height. A 5 foot 10 inch adult falls between about 129 and 174 pounds. The NHLBI publishes the same band as 18.5 to 24.9, and the American Heart Association gives 18.5 to 25, so the boundary moves by a fraction depending on which body you read.
What is ideal body weight, and what was it built for? Ideal body weight is an estimate drawn from formulas written for medicine between 1964 and 1983, and calculator.net states plainly that they were developed mainly to make drug dosage calculations easier. Omni names a specific use, computing immunoglobulin doses, and MDCalc uses ideal body weight to set ventilator tidal volume. None of that has anything to do with how a person looks.
Which ideal weight formula is most accurate? None is clearly best. Six respected equations disagree by about 17 pounds at 5 foot 10, with Broca highest and Miller lowest, and Omni calls Devine the most medically validated of the set. That spread is the argument for reading the BMI range over any single output.
Does ideal weight change with age? For adults, no. MedicalNewsToday states directly that age is not a factor in BMI for adults, only for children aged 2 to 19. The formulas and the healthy band use height and sex alone, so a 25 year old and a 55 year old of the same height share the same number.
What is adjusted body weight? Adjusted body weight is ideal weight plus 40 percent of the gap between actual and ideal weight. Clinicians use it to dose some medications in heavier patients, because fat tissue changes how a drug distributes. ClinCalc puts the threshold at 120 percent of ideal weight, and names a second figure above 130 percent, nutritional body weight, which uses a 0.25 factor for feeding assessment. MDCalc advises confirming any dose with a pharmacy, since some drugs dose on ideal weight and others on actual weight.
How do I adjust for frame size? Take 10 percent off for a small frame and add 10 percent for a large one. FatCalc and MiniWebTool both size the frame from wrist circumference against reference tables that vary by sex and height, and both apply the same 10 percent band. On a 5 foot 10 man centring near 160 pounds that spans about 144 to 176, which is nearly double the 17 pound spread between the six formulas. Neither source shows a validation study behind the figure, so treat it as rough.
Why does BMI misread muscular people? Because it cannot see the difference between muscle and fat. The American Heart Association notes that well-trained people with dense muscle can score a high BMI while carrying very little body fat, and points to waist circumference, skinfold thickness or direct body-fat measurement instead. MedicalNewsToday raises waist-to-height ratio as another useful check.
Who should not use this calculator? Children and pregnant people. Omni excludes both explicitly, and children are scored against growth percentiles rather than a fixed band because they are still growing. Anyone with high muscle mass should read the result alongside a body-composition measure.
Sources
Fetched 10 September 2026.
- calculator.net ideal weight calculator, on the drug-dosing origin and the classic formulas
- ClinCalc, for the four clinical uses, the 120 percent threshold and nutritional body weight
- MDCalc, ideal body weight and adjusted body weight (clinical dosing and tidal volume)
- FatCalc, for the wrist-circumference frame size rule and the 10 percent band
- MiniWebTool, for the same frame-size rule and the average-of-formulas reading
- Omni Calculator ideal weight, which calls Devine the most medically validated
- MedicalNewsToday, on age in adult BMI and waist-to-height ratio
- MANA, on body composition shifting with age at the same weight
- Disabled World height to weight chart, for the measured US adult BMI means
Carried over from the 18 July 2026 teardown and not re-fetched for this pass: