Body
Ideal body weight
Four formulas from between 1964 and 1983, none of which know anything about your frame, muscle or ancestry. Devine's was devised for calculating drug doses, not health. Read the range, not the numbers.
Result
Breakdown
Worth knowing
- All four are linear fits anchored at 5 feet, so they are extrapolations below that height rather than validated values.
- A single 'ideal' weight is a fiction. Two people at the same height and weight can have completely different body composition.
How this is calculated
Each formula takes a base weight at 5 feet and adds a fixed amount per inch above it — Devine 50 + 2.3/in (male), 45.5 + 2.3/in (female); Robinson, Miller and Hamwi differ only in their coefficients.
Common questions
Which of the four formulas should I actually use?
None of them as a target. They are linear fits published between 1964 and 1983, and not one accounts for frame size, muscle mass or ancestry. The healthy BMI range shown above them is the more defensible answer, because it is a range rather than a single number.
Why do the formulas disagree with each other?
They were fitted to different populations at different times, and they differ only in their base weight at five feet and how much they add per inch. The spread between them is a fair measure of how imprecise the whole idea is.
Why was the Devine formula invented?
For calculating drug dosages, not for assessing health. It entered popular use as a health target more or less by accident, and it is still the most widely quoted of the four.