Healthy weight range by height
| Height | Healthy weight (BMI 18.5–24.9) | Midpoint |
|---|---|---|
| 1.50 m (4'11") | 42–56 kg (92–123 lb) | ~49 kg |
| 1.55 m (5'1") | 44–60 kg (98–132 lb) | ~52 kg |
| 1.60 m (5'3") | 47–64 kg (104–141 lb) | ~56 kg |
| 1.65 m (5'5") | 50–68 kg (110–150 lb) | ~59 kg |
| 1.70 m (5'7") | 53–72 kg (117–159 lb) | ~63 kg |
| 1.75 m (5'9") | 57–76 kg (125–168 lb) | ~67 kg |
| 1.80 m (5'11") | 60–81 kg (132–178 lb) | ~71 kg |
| 1.85 m (6'1") | 63–85 kg (140–188 lb) | ~74 kg |
| 1.90 m (6'3") | 67–90 kg (148–198 lb) | ~79 kg |
Why it is a range and not a number
Look at the width of the bars in the figure. At 1.70 m, the healthy span runs from 53 to 72 kg — a 19 kg spread, both ends of which are entirely normal. Anyone offering you a single "ideal weight for your height" is discarding most of that range for no good reason.
Where you sit within your span depends on things the chart cannot see: how much muscle you carry, your frame size and bone structure, your sex, your age, and your body-fat distribution. A muscular person sits legitimately near the top of the range. A small-framed person may feel best near the bottom. Both are healthy weights for that height.
Note also that the ranges are identical for men and women. Men typically carry more muscle at the same height, which in practice pushes them toward the upper part of the span — the chart does not adjust for this, and neither does BMI.
The classic formulas give a single number — and they are older than you think
Clinical practice has several "ideal body weight" equations that return one figure rather than a range: Devine, Robinson, Miller, Hamwi. They agree closely with each other and typically land near the lower-middle of the BMI-derived span above.
Their history is worth knowing. The Devine formula was published in 1974, and it was not designed to tell people what to weigh at all — it was created to standardise drug dosing, which needs a single reproducible number rather than an honest range. That it became a consumer-facing "ideal weight" target is a repurposing its author never intended. If a calculator hands you one precise ideal weight, that is where the number probably comes from, and the range on this page is the more useful answer.
Where this chart does not apply
- Athletes and very muscular people. Muscle mass pushes weight above the range without excess fat. This chart will read them as overweight and be wrong.
- Older adults. Some evidence suggests a slightly higher BMI is protective in later life, partly because reserves matter during illness. Being at the very bottom of the range at 75 is not obviously the goal.
- Children and adolescents. Use age- and sex-specific growth charts instead. Adult ranges do not transfer.
- Pregnancy. Weight gain is expected and is guided by starting BMI; this chart is not the reference to use.
- People of South Asian, Chinese and some other Asian ancestry. Lower BMI thresholds are often applied, which shifts the healthy span downward.
- Anyone with a history of disordered eating. Target weights can be actively harmful. Please see our medical disclaimer.
Better questions than "what should I weigh?"
Weight is one of the least informative health numbers available, and it is the one people fixate on hardest. More useful signals, none of which require a scale: your waist measurement, your resting blood pressure, your blood glucose and lipid markers, how easily you climb two flights of stairs, how well you sleep, your energy through the day, and whether your strength is going up or down over months.
Someone who is 4 kg above their "range" but sleeps well, trains three times a week, and has clean bloodwork is in better shape than someone inside the range who does none of those things. The scale cannot tell those two people apart.
If you do want to move within the range
Aim for slow change, roughly 0.5 kg a week, driven by a modest calorie deficit rather than an aggressive one. Keep protein high enough and keep resistance training in the week — the goal is to lose fat rather than the muscle that keeps your metabolic rate up and your body functional. Weigh yourself under consistent conditions and read the weekly average, not the daily figure: normal fluctuations in water, food volume, and glycogen routinely move the scale a kilogram or two in either direction while nothing meaningful has changed.
And set an endpoint you can hold. A weight you can only reach through restriction you cannot sustain is not a goal, it is a temporary state with a rebound attached.