Ideal Weight Calculator - Devine, Robinson, Miller, Hamwi

An ideal weight calculator in the pharmacy and insurance sense answers a narrow question: given adult standing height and a binary sex table, what kilogram figures do the classic ideal body weight (IBW) equations return? This page runs four of them side by side: Devine, Robinson, Miller, and Hamwi. Every equation starts at five feet (60 inches) and then adds a kilogram increment for each extra inch. Metric centimetres are converted to inches with 1 inch = 2.54 cm before that extra term is formed. The default case is a male at 5 ft 10 in, which is 70 inches, extra = 10, and Devine IBW = 50 + 2.3 × 10 = 73.0 kg (about 160.9 lb).

These numbers were not invented as a personal aesthetic target. Devine’s 1974 line is the one most often copied into adult aminoglycoside and other dosing notes. Hamwi’s 1964 rule of thumb sat in a diabetes teaching manual. Robinson (1983) and Miller (1983) refit older Metropolitan Life insurance tables. Pai and Paloucek’s later review is the usual citation when someone asks where the intercepts came from. None of those papers claimed that matching IBW would make an individual “healthy,” and none of them is the same thing as BMI 22.

At 70 inches (1.778 m), BMI 22 would be 22 × 1.778² ≈ 69.5 kg, several kilograms below Devine’s 73.0 kg. The WHO adult “normal” band of 18.5–24.9 at that height is a range of roughly 58–79 kg, not a single destiny weight. If you want that band, leave this page and use the healthy weight calculator. If you want kg/m² and the full WHO ladder, use the BMI calculator. This tool only compares the four IBW lines.

Sex here means the male or female intercept published with each formula. Those binary tables are historical dosing conventions. They do not describe intersex variation, gender identity, hormone therapy, or athletic phenotype. A clinician who needs a dosing weight still looks at actual body weight, adjusted body weight, renal function, and the drug’s label - not a web form. This is not medical advice and not a prescription calculator.

1. Choose metric (centimetres) or imperial (feet plus leftover inches). Extra inches are always computed from a 60-inch baseline.
2. Select the male or female table used by Devine, Robinson, Miller, and Hamwi.
3. Read all four kilogram results and their pound conversions. Copy the block if you need a record. Inputs stay in this browser for up to 30 days and are never uploaded.
4. If height is under 5 feet, read the warning. The page still computes a negative extra term so you can inspect the arithmetic, but that range was never well defined in the source papers.

Convert 5 ft 10 in to 70 inches. Subtract the five-foot baseline: extra = 10. Male Devine is 50 + 2.3 × 10 = 73.0 kg. Male Robinson is 52 + 1.9 × 10 = 71.0 kg. Male Miller is 56.2 + 1.41 × 10 = 70.3 kg. Male Hamwi is 48 + 2.7 × 10 = 75.0 kg. The four answers already disagree by almost five kilograms before anyone mentions body fat. That spread is the point of showing them together: there is no single “ideal.”

Metric default 177.8 cm is exactly 70 inches because 70 × 2.54 = 177.8. Extra is still 10, so Devine remains 73.0 kg. Female tables at the same height: Devine 45.5 + 23 = 68.5 kg, Robinson 49 + 17 = 66.0 kg, Miller 53.1 + 13.6 = 66.7 kg, Hamwi 45.5 + 22 = 67.5 kg. Pound conversions use 1 kg = 2.2046226218 lb, so 73.0 kg is about 160.9 lb and 68.5 kg is about 151.0 lb.

A 6 ft 2 in male (74 in, extra = 14) yields Devine 50 + 32.2 = 82.2 kg, Robinson 78.6 kg, Miller 75.9 kg, Hamwi 85.8 kg. A 5 ft 4 in female (64 in, extra = 4) yields Devine 54.7 kg, Robinson 55.8 kg, Miller 58.5 kg, Hamwi 54.3 kg. Same height, four stories. If you only remember one default, remember male 5 ft 10 in → Devine 73.0 kg, and remember that it is not BMI 22.

The published lines are written as a base weight at five feet plus a positive increment per extra inch. Below 60 inches the extra term is negative. A 4 ft 10 in male (58 in, extra = −2) would get Devine 50 − 4.6 = 45.4 kg. That is arithmetic, not a validated IBW for short adults. The original papers did not populate a well-defined table for that range. Pediatrics is a different error: children are not miniature adults, and IBW dosing tables for kids belong in pediatric references, not on this form.

This page still computes when extra is negative so a student can see what the algebra does. It does not hide the warning. Extremely tall adults also sit farther from the populations the insurance tables described. Use clinical judgment, not a web form, when height is far from the textbook cylinder those equations assumed.

Pregnancy, edema, casts, limb loss, and ascites all break the idea that a height-only formula describes “the” body. Adjusted body weight used in some obese-patient dosing notes (IBW plus a fraction of the difference to actual weight) is not implemented here. If a drug label says to use actual weight, IBW, or adjusted weight, follow the label and a pharmacist - not this educational page.

Devine is the celebrity of the four because so many adult pharmacokinetic examples copied it. Hamwi often runs a little heavier for men at the same extra inches because 2.7 kg per inch is a steeper slope than Devine’s 2.3. Miller is the flattest male slope at 1.41 kg per inch, so tall Miller estimates lag the others. Robinson sits between Devine and Miller for many male heights. For women the ranking can shuffle because intercepts and slopes both change.

Hospital protocols sometimes freeze one equation so every pharmacist on the ward uses the same IBW. That is a consistency choice, not evidence that Devine is “truer” than Hamwi. If two services disagree, they are usually arguing about protocol, not about a newly discovered law of nature. This calculator refuses to hide three of the four numbers just to make the page look more confident than the literature.

Insurance “ideal” tables from the mid-twentieth century also baked in clothing, shoes, and frame size (small, medium, large) that this page does not ask for. Hamwi and the 1983 refits flattened those extras. If you are reading an old Metropolitan Life chart, you are not reading Devine, and you are not reading BMI. Frame size was a cubit-style fudge, not a DEXA scan.

Healthy weight on this site means the kilogram interval that keeps adult BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 at a given height. That is a public-health band, still not a diagnosis. Ideal weight here means four dosing/insurance formulas. Do not mix the words. The healthy weight calculator does not need sex. The BMI calculator needs height and today’s weight. This page needs height and a formula table.

Lean mass and body fat are different jobs again. IBW does not know whether the extra kilograms are muscle. A Navy circumference estimate on the body fat calculator and a lean body mass equation answer questions IBW cannot see. Energy needs are yet another question: estimate BMR with the BMR calculator and daily expenditure with the calorie calculator. None of those tools is a diet prescription.

Body-surface area used in some chemotherapy contexts is also not IBW. Mosteller BSA is √(height_cm × weight_kg / 3600). For 177.8 cm and Devine 73 kg that is √(3.605) ≈ 1.90 m², which you can compute on the body surface area calculator. Do not confuse metres squared of skin with kilograms of a 1974 dosing line.

Search traffic clusters on “ideal weight for 5 10 male,” “ideal body weight formula,” and “Devine vs Hamwi.” The honest 5 ft 10 in male answer is: Devine 73.0 kg, Robinson 71.0 kg, Miller 70.3 kg, Hamwi 75.0 kg - and none of those is a moral grade. How to calculate extra inches is total inches minus 60. Anything beyond that - fat loss, muscle gain, medication, surgery - is clinical work this page will not perform.

Stigma is a documented harm of treating a single kilogram figure as a verdict. Crash diets, weight-cycling, and using a calculator as self-punishment are not what these equations were for. If food or weight thoughts are taking over your life, contact a clinician or a local eating-disorder resource. IBW cannot diagnose an eating disorder. We did not build a tool named after those conditions.

Worked extras keep the arithmetic honest. Male 180 cm (70.87 in, extra ≈ 10.87): Devine ≈ 75.0 kg. Female 165 cm (64.96 in, extra ≈ 4.96): Devine ≈ 56.9 kg. Male 160 cm (62.99 in, extra ≈ 2.99): Devine ≈ 56.9 kg. Female 150 cm (59.06 in, extra ≈ −0.94): Devine ≈ 43.3 kg with the below-5-ft warning on. Male 190 cm (74.80 in, extra ≈ 14.80): Devine ≈ 84.0 kg. Those examples show how a few centimetres move IBW more than people expect once the slope is 2.3 kg per inch.

Adjusted body weight, used in some obese-patient dosing notes, is a different equation again: IBW plus a fraction (often 0.4) of the difference between actual weight and IBW. This page does not compute it, because the fraction and the trigger (when actual weight exceeds IBW by 20–30%) are protocol choices, not a universal constant. If a label says to use actual, ideal, or adjusted weight, that label wins. Students sometimes multiply Devine by 1.3 and call it “adjusted”; that shortcut is not Hamwi, not Robinson, and not BMI 22.

Frame size used to be sold as a wrist-circumference fudge on insurance charts: small, medium, and large frames got different “ideal” rows. This calculator does not ask for wrist girth. Adding a homemade ±10% after Devine is not a published IBW formula. If you need composition rather than a 1974 intercept, measure circumferences or get a clinical assessment. IBW will not become DEXA by wishing.

Female worked extras keep the tables honest. Female 5 ft 10 in (extra = 10): Devine 68.5 kg, Robinson 66.0 kg, Miller 66.7 kg, Hamwi 67.5 kg. Female 5 ft 2 in (extra = 2): Devine 50.1 kg, Robinson 52.4 kg, Miller 55.8 kg, Hamwi 49.9 kg. Male 5 ft 0 in (extra = 0): Devine 50.0 kg, Robinson 52.0 kg, Miller 56.2 kg, Hamwi 48.0 kg - the intercepts themselves, with no extra-inch term. Male 5 ft 6 in (extra = 6): Devine 63.8 kg. Those four-way spreads are why this page refuses to hide three formulas.

After you have IBW, pick the calculator that matches the next question: overweight screening, underweight BMI and thinness grades, macro splits, or protein grams. This page only adds extra inches to a 1970s intercept. It will not tell you what you “should” weigh.