Ideal Weight by Height and Age — Full Table

Two things are missing from this table, and both absences are the point: there is no age column, and there is no single ideal weight. US agencies publish a healthy weight range — BMI 18.5 to 24.9 — for every adult from 20 upward. The formula columns beside it exist so you can see how a single number behaves against that range.

The table

Height	Healthy range	Devine, men	Devine, women
4 ft 10 in	89–119 lb	—	—
5 ft 0 in	95–128 lb	110 lb	100 lb
5 ft 2 in	102–136 lb	120 lb	110 lb
5 ft 4 in	108–145 lb	131 lb	121 lb
5 ft 6 in	115–154 lb	141 lb	131 lb
5 ft 8 in	122–164 lb	151 lb	141 lb
5 ft 10 in	129–174 lb	161 lb	151 lb
6 ft 0 in	137–184 lb	171 lb	161 lb
6 ft 2 in	145–194 lb	181 lb	171 lb
6 ft 4 in	152–205 lb	191 lb	181 lb

The dashes are not an oversight. Devine’s equation is anchored at exactly five feet and has no defined behaviour below it — feeding it a shorter height extrapolates off the end of the data it was fitted to.

No adult table has an age column

The NIDDK states its BMI categories apply to adults ages 20 and older. Not 20 to 40, not 20 to 64 — one table, running to the end of life. The NHLBI does the same. Neither publishes a higher band for older adults, and neither publishes a lower one for people in their twenties.

Below 20 the logic inverts completely: children and teens are read as percentiles for age and sex, using the WHO charts under 24 months and the CDC charts from age 2 through 19, per the CDC’s 2010 recommendation. That is a moving reference, updated every few months, which is why no fixed row can serve it. See ideal weight for children.

How each row was built

The range columns are the BMI formula solved for weight: weight = BMI × height (in)² ÷ 703, evaluated at 18.5 and 24.9. At 5 ft 8 in that is 18.5 × 4,624 ÷ 703 = 121.7 lb and 24.9 × 4,624 ÷ 703 = 163.8 lb, printed as 122 and 164 so adjacent bands do not overlap.

The formula columns are Devine’s 1974 equation: 50 kg for men and 45.5 kg for women at five feet, plus 2.3 kg for each inch above. Every row is 5.1 lb apart, and the women’s column is the men’s column minus 10 lb, without exception.

The single number slides; the range does not

Compare the two side by side and something odd emerges. At 5 ft 0 in, Devine’s number for a man sits 45 percent of the way up the healthy band. At 5 ft 4 in it is 62 percent, at 5 ft 10 in 69 percent, and at 6 ft 4 in it has climbed to 74 percent. For women the same drift runs from 15 percent to 55 percent.

An ideal weight that occupies a different position in the healthy range at every height is not tracking health. It is a straight line laid over a curve, which is precisely what Peterson and colleagues concluded in 2016 when they replaced these equations with one that stays aligned with BMI by construction.

For the band at your exact height rather than the nearest row, use the ideal weight calculator. For your current weight scored against the same cutoffs, the BMI calculator; and for the difference between the two columns above, ideal weight vs BMI.

This content is informational and does not replace evaluation by a health professional.