Ideal body weight from four widely used medical formulas.
Average ideal weight
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Devine
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Robinson
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Miller
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Hamwi
These formulas were developed for drug-dosing estimates, not fitness or aesthetic goals — they do not account for muscle mass, frame size or body composition. Talk to a doctor before treating any figure here as a target.
How this works
All formulas start from 5 feet (60 inches) and add a fixed amount per inch above it, differing by sex and formula:
Devine (male): 50.0 kg + 2.3 kg × inches over 60
Robinson (male): 52.0 kg + 1.9 kg × inches over 60
The four formulas were developed decades apart for medical dosing, not fitness — they typically land within a few kilograms of each other but are not identical.
None of them account for muscle mass, so a muscular, athletic person will often read well above every formula here without being overweight.
These are population averages, not individual targets — treat the range across all four as more informative than any single number.
Which formula is most accurate?
None is definitively "correct" — they were all built from different population studies. Robinson (1983) is a commonly cited refinement of the earlier Devine (1974) formula; Miller and Hamwi are older alternatives. Looking at the spread across all four is more useful than picking one.
Why do these formulas ignore frame size and muscle?
They were originally created to estimate drug dosing weight quickly in a clinical setting, not to set a fitness or body-composition target, so they intentionally only use height and sex.
What should I use instead for a fitness goal?
Body fat percentage and waist-to-hip ratio are better indicators of body composition than a single ideal-weight number — see the body fat and waist-to-hip ratio calculators.
Do these formulas work for children?
No — all four formulas were derived from adult populations and assume adult body proportions. Children need paediatric growth charts based on age and sex percentiles instead.