Healthy Weight Calculator

This gives the healthy weight range for a height: the span of weights that fall inside a BMI of 18.5 to 25. It needs nothing but your height (no age, no gender, no current weight) because that is all the definition depends on. The table and scale extend the same arithmetic to every BMI category, so you can see where each threshold sits in pounds or kilograms.

What counts as a healthy weight

The healthy range comes from BMI. For an adult aged 18 or over, a BMI between 18.5 and 25 kg/m² is normally defined as a healthy weight, and once height is fixed that translates into a span of weights. At 5 feet 10 inches the band runs from about 129 to 174 pounds, a spread of 45 pounds, all of it inside "healthy".

That width is the point. There is no single correct weight for a height, and a calculator that returns one number is telling you less than a range does. Our BMI Calculator covers the classification in detail.

The important caveat: BMI takes no account of body composition. It is accurate enough for an average person, which means it is possible to be classed as overweight or underweight and still be healthy. Establishing that takes more than any generalised calculation, usually with a doctor's help.

Why it is a range and not a number

At 5 feet 10 inches the healthy band runs from about 129 to 174 pounds. That is a 45-pound spread, all of it classified as healthy, and the width is the most useful thing on the page.

The band widens as height increases, because weight scales with the square of height while the BMI thresholds stay fixed. A person of 5 feet has a healthy range about 12 pounds narrower than someone of 6 feet. The second chart shows that widening directly.

Anyone wanting a single target figure instead should use the Ideal Weight Calculator, which applies the Devine, Robinson, Miller and Hamwi formulas and does take age and gender into account. Those formulas return one number each, but they disagree with one another by around ten pounds for the same body, and every one of them lands inside the range shown here. Treat them as reference points; the range is the definition.

Being underweight (BMI under 18.5)

Someone can be underweight through genetics, insufficient food, a metabolic problem, medication, or illness. It is associated with a range of conditions including hyperthyroidism, cancer and tuberculosis, and can be the first visible sign of an undiagnosed disorder.

Studies have found mortality among underweight people comparable to that of the severely obese. The picture is complicated by reverse causation: much of that excess is disease-related weight loss, where the illness caused the low weight rather than the other way round. Being underweight without an underlying disease may carry considerably less risk than the raw figures suggest.

Beyond mortality, it brings low energy and stamina, reduced bone density and osteoporosis, and a weakened immune system that leaves you more open to infection. Where the cause is a shortage of good food rather than heavy exercise, malnutrition can follow, affecting both physical and mental development. In severe cases that reaches kwashiorkor or marasmus.

In women, being underweight through an eating disorder can stop menstruation, cause infertility, and lead to complications in pregnancy.

Being overweight (BMI 25 to 30)

Overweight generally results from taking in more energy than the body spends through metabolism and activity, but the causes around that are broad: genetic predisposition, alcohol, eating disorders, a sedentary routine, poor nutrition and stress all contribute.

The consequences are more contested here than at higher BMIs. The general position is that overweight causes the same problems as obesity to a lesser degree. Against that, a large 2013 meta-analysis in JAMA found lower all-cause mortality in the overweight category than in the normal-weight category, the finding usually called the obesity paradox. Some read it as evidence that a BMI of 25 to 30 may be close to optimal.

The objections are worth knowing, because the finding is real but the interpretation is disputed. Smokers and people with wasting illnesses are concentrated in the lower BMI groups, dragging that group's mortality up. Mortality is also a narrow measure of health: the raised risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and several cancers is not captured by counting deaths. Years lived in good health, rather than years lived, is the more useful question.

Obesity (BMI over 30)

Obesity typically follows from too little activity, excessive intake and genetic susceptibility. Less often it is driven mainly by genetics, hormonal imbalance from an endocrine disorder, medication, or mental illness. It is largely preventable through diet and lifestyle, though the full set of contributing factors is still not well understood. Reduced to one person it is a question of energy in against energy out; at the level of a population it plainly is not, and there is no algorithmic solution to it.

It substantially raises the risk of cardiovascular disease including heart disease and stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal problems such as osteoarthritis, and several cancers. It also causes obstructive sleep apnoea and depression, and can be caused by depression in turn. Taken together these complications reduce life expectancy, and obesity is classed as one of the leading preventable causes of death worldwide.

Reaching and holding a healthy weight

Underweight, overweight and obesity lead to different complications, but managing them draws on the same three areas: diet, activity, and mental health where it is involved.

Gaining weight. Raise calorie intake through nutrient-dense food (whole grains, vegetables, lean protein, nuts and seeds) eaten more often rather than in larger single meals. Resistance training adds muscle, which raises weight in a form worth having. Where the cause is anorexia or bulimia nervosa, the psychological treatment has to run alongside the physical, and neither works alone.

Losing weight. The WHO recommends limiting energy-dense foods, total fat and sugar while increasing fruit, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts, along with regular activity: 150 minutes a week for adults and 60 minutes a day for children. A rate of 1 to 2 pounds a week is the usual guidance, and slower is generally more durable. The familiar 3,500 calories per pound rule is a rough approximation that overstates long-run losses, because metabolic rate falls as body size does, a target set in week one is too high by week twenty.

Holding it. Maintenance is harder than loss and gets far less attention. Repeated cycles of losing and regaining are common and carry their own risks, which is an argument for changes you can keep rather than the fastest available method.

Individual effort also only goes so far without access to healthy options. The WHO's position is that education, affordability, taxes on sugar-sweetened drinks, reduced sugar and salt in processed food, and limits on marketing such products to children and teenagers all shape what people can realistically do.

Children and teenagers

None of this applies under 18. The formulas above begin at 5 feet and were fitted to adults, and the BMI band is an adult band. For ages 2 to 20 the CDC publishes BMI-for-age growth charts, which compare a child against others of the same age and sex rather than against a fixed number. Those charts are linked beneath the calculator.

Reading your result

Compare your current weight against the band. Inside it, you are a healthy weight by the standard definition. Outside it, the distance to the nearest edge is the number worth acting on, and it is usually smaller than people assume.

Weight and height alone also miss where fat sits, which is where much of the real risk lies. Waist circumference and the rule of keeping your waist under half your height both catch central fat that a scale cannot. Our BMI Calculator classifies a specific weight, and the Body Fat Calculator covers composition.