Healthy Weight Range Calculator

By Rick Campbell · Updated 12 Sept 2026 · Sourced to primary literature · Not medical advice

For any height there is a band of weights consistent with good health, not a single figure. The WHO defines it through body mass index: 18.5 at the bottom, 24.9 at the top. Converted back into kilograms it is about fourteen kilograms wide at 150 cm and twenty-four at 195 cm, and every weight inside it carries broadly similar risk. This calculator gives you that band for your height, in whichever units you actually weigh yourself in.

It also answers the question a band alone cannot: where you sit in it. Add your current weight and the result tells you plainly whether you are inside the range and how far above its lower edge, or how many kilograms above the top of it, along with your BMI, the WHO category that BMI falls in, and the distance to the nearest classification boundary. Two further bands appear if they apply to you: the WHO Asia-Pacific normal range of 18.5 to 22.9 for people of Asian ancestry, and the 23 to 27 band that a large meta-analysis associated with the lowest mortality in adults over 65.

If instead you want a single number produced by a named clinical formula (the kind a pharmacist or a ventilator protocol uses), that is the ideal weight calculator, which runs Hamwi, Devine, Robinson and Miller side by side. This page deliberately does the opposite: it shows you the whole band and your position in it, because that is the more honest answer to what should I weigh.

In brief

The WHO healthy weight range is BMI 18.5 to 24.9 converted back into weight at your height, a band roughly fourteen to twenty-four kilograms wide depending on how tall you are.
Enter a current weight and the result says exactly where you sit: inside the range and how far above its lower edge, or how many kilograms beyond the top of it.
The band widens with height because it scales with height squared, which is why tall people have far more room inside it than short people do.
For people of Asian ancestry the WHO Asia-Pacific classification narrows the normal band to BMI 18.5 to 22.9; it is a separate recognised system shown alongside, never a replacement.
After 65, a meta-analysis of 32 cohorts covering 197,940 adults found mortality risk rising below BMI 23 and no increase across the overweight range: an observed association, not a WHO category and not a target.

What you'll see here

The WHO healthy weight range for your height in your units, exactly where your current weight sits inside or outside it, your BMI and its WHO category, the weight scale with every boundary marked, and, if you tell us, the Asia-Pacific band for Asian ancestry or the 65-plus evidence band.

Healthy weight range by height (WHO standard, with the Asia-Pacific variant alongside)
Height	Healthy range (BMI 18.5 – 24.9)	Asia-Pacific range (BMI 18.5 – 22.9)
150 cm	41.6 kg – 56 kg	41.6 kg – 51.5 kg
155 cm	44.4 kg – 59.8 kg	44.4 kg – 55 kg
160 cm	47.4 kg – 63.7 kg	47.4 kg – 58.6 kg
165 cm	50.4 kg – 67.8 kg	50.4 kg – 62.3 kg
170 cm	53.5 kg – 72 kg	53.5 kg – 66.2 kg
175 cm	56.7 kg – 76.3 kg	56.7 kg – 70.1 kg
180 cm	59.9 kg – 80.7 kg	59.9 kg – 74.2 kg
185 cm	63.3 kg – 85.2 kg	63.3 kg – 78.4 kg
190 cm	66.8 kg – 89.9 kg	66.8 kg – 82.7 kg
195 cm	70.3 kg – 94.7 kg	70.3 kg – 87.1 kg

Both columns are the same arithmetic run backwards: weight = BMI × height in metres squared. The band widens with height because it scales with height squared (roughly 14 kg wide at 150 cm and 24 kg wide at 195 cm), which is one reason a single "ideal" number flatters nobody at the extremes.

What the healthy weight range actually is

The range is not an independent measurement. It is BMI run backwards. BMI is weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared, so fixing BMI at 18.5 and at 24.9 and solving for weight gives the two edges of the band at your height. At 170 cm (1.70 m, so 2.89 m²) that is 18.5 × 2.89 = 53.5 kg at the bottom and 24.9 × 2.89 = 72.0 kg at the top.

Those two cut-offs come from the WHO Expert Committee report Physical status: the use and interpretation of anthropometry, published as Technical Report Series 854 in 1995, which set the international classification still in use today. They were chosen because all-cause mortality in large cohorts describes a shallow curve with a broad flat floor, and 18.5 to 24.9 approximates that floor for adult populations as a whole. The edges are therefore statistical conveniences on a continuum, not thresholds at which something happens to a body.

That matters for how you read your own number. Someone at 24.8 and someone at 25.1 are the same person in every respect that a doctor would notice. The band is useful for telling you roughly where you are and how much room you have; it is not useful as a pass or fail.

How wide the range is, and why

Because BMI scales with the square of height, the healthy band does too. At 150 cm the range spans about 41.6 kg to 56.0 kg, a width of 14.4 kg. At 170 cm it spans about 53.5 kg to 72.0 kg, a width of 18.5 kg. At 195 cm it spans about 70.3 kg to 94.7 kg, a width of 24.3 kg. A tall person genuinely has more room to move inside the healthy range than a short person does, and a short person's weight changes therefore consume a larger fraction of the band.

This is also why percentage-based targets behave differently at different heights. Losing five per cent of body weight moves a 60 kg person 3 kg, which is a fifth of the band at 150 cm; the same five per cent moves a 100 kg person 5 kg, a fifth of the band at 195 cm. The reference table on this page shows the band for every height from 150 to 195 cm so you can see the pattern rather than take our word for it.

150 cm: roughly 41.6 to 56.0 kg, a 14.4 kg band.
165 cm: roughly 50.4 to 67.8 kg, a 17.4 kg band.
180 cm: roughly 59.9 to 80.7 kg, a 20.7 kg band.
195 cm: roughly 70.3 to 94.7 kg, a 24.3 kg band.

Where you sit in the range, and what that tells you

Add a current weight and the calculator reports your position in three complementary ways. First in plain words: inside the range and so many kilograms above the lower edge, or so many kilograms above the top. Second as a BMI with its WHO category, so the number matches whatever a clinic or an app has told you. Third as a distance to the nearest classification boundary, because being 1.2 kg from the next category up is a very different situation from being 11 kg from it, and the category label alone hides that entirely.

The measurement rule on the result panel puts all of it on one scale: the bottom and top of the healthy band, the obese class I boundary at BMI 30, and your own weight marked precisely between them. Seeing the marker sitting a hand's width inside the band is worth more than any adjective a calculator could attach to it.

One caution about reading your position too finely. Body weight swings one to two kilograms across an ordinary day on food, fluid, glycogen and bowel contents alone, and further across a menstrual cycle. If the calculator says you are 1.5 kg above the top of the range, the honest reading is that you are at the top of the range. Weigh yourself in the same conditions (first thing, after the bathroom, before eating) and judge by the trend across several weeks.

The WHO Asia-Pacific range, for people of Asian ancestry

Select Asian ancestry and a second row appears: the WHO Asia-Pacific normal range, BMI 18.5 to 22.9, from the WHO, IASO and IOTF regional report The Asia-Pacific Perspective published in 2000. It exists because at any given BMI, body fat percentage and cardiometabolic risk run higher in many East, South and Southeast Asian populations than in the European populations from which the international cut-offs were largely derived. At 170 cm that narrower band works out at about 53.5 kg to 66.2 kg, roughly six kilograms tighter at the top.

The 2004 WHO Expert Consultation reviewed this evidence and made a deliberate choice that is widely misreported: it retained the international cut-offs for global comparability and added public-health action points at BMI 23.0, 27.5, 32.5 and 37.5 for Asian populations alongside them. So there are two recognised classifications and one set of action points, not one replaced table. This calculator shows both bands as separate rows with their sources named, and our Asian BMI calculator goes further into the comparison.

Adults over 65: where the evidence points

Enter an age of 65 or over and a third row appears, clearly labelled as an association rather than a category. Winter and colleagues published a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2014 pooling 32 cohort studies of 197,940 older adults with an average follow-up of twelve years. Using BMI 23.0 to 23.9 as the reference, they found all-cause mortality rising as BMI fell below 23, while the overweight range showed no increased risk. The practical band that reading implies is roughly 23 to 27.

Two things follow, and neither is a licence to gain weight. The first is that in older adults a little reserve appears protective: illness, surgery and hospital admissions all draw on body stores, and there is more to lose from being at the thin edge than from sitting in the upper half of the range. The second is that low weight in later life is often a consequence of illness rather than a cause of longevity, which is part of what these cohort studies are picking up. Unintentional weight loss after 65 deserves a doctor's attention far more urgently than a BMI of 26 does.

The WHO band is defined for all adults and has not been revised for age. We show the older-adult row because hiding well-replicated evidence would be dishonest, and we label it as an observed association because calling it a category would be equally dishonest.

Where in the range you personally belong

The band is twenty kilograms wide for a reason: what suits you inside it depends on things weight cannot see. Muscle mass is the largest factor. A strength athlete can sit above the top of the band with a low body fat percentage and no metabolic abnormality at all, which is a known limitation of BMI rather than a personal failing. Frame size shifts things a few kilograms either way. Fat distribution matters more than either, which is why since 2025 clinical guidance pairs BMI with a direct measure of fat distribution before concluding anything about excess adiposity.

The single most useful addition is a waist measurement. Waist-to-height ratio has one memorable threshold (keep your waist under half your height) and it captures the visceral fat that drives cardiometabolic risk. If your weight sits above the band but your waist is under half your height, the two screens disagree, and that disagreement is information worth acting on rather than a contradiction to resolve.

This page adds one composition estimate of its own. Give it a current weight and an age, and it applies the Deurenberg equation from 1991 (1.20 × BMI + 0.23 × age − 10.8 × sex − 5.4, with sex as 1 for men and 0 for women) to estimate body fat from BMI. Its error is about four percentage points for an average build and considerably worse for muscular or very lean people, because BMI is the only body measurement it sees. It is there to show why two people at the same point in the same range can be in quite different shape, not as a substitute for measuring.

What the healthy weight range cannot tell you

It cannot tell fat from muscle, which is the limitation every other criticism of BMI descends from. It cannot see where fat is stored, so it treats visceral and subcutaneous fat identically when the evidence does not. It says nothing about fitness, blood pressure, blood glucose or lipids, any one of which predicts outcomes better than weight alone.

It is also not valid for everyone. Adult BMI categories do not apply under 18, where BMI-for-age percentile charts are the correct instrument, and this calculator refuses to run the adult maths for a minor rather than producing a number with no defensible meaning. During pregnancy the relevant reference is gestational weight gain against the pre-pregnancy category, not the standard band. In people with amputations, large tumours, significant oedema or ascites, or very short stature from a skeletal condition, the height-squared denominator stops meaning what it usually means.

Under 18: use BMI-for-age percentiles, not the adult band.
Pregnancy: use gestational weight-gain ranges based on the pre-pregnancy category.
Athletes and heavily muscled builds: expect the band to read low, and check waist-to-height instead.
Fluid retention, oedema or ascites: weight is not body mass in the sense the formula assumes.

Moving into the range, or within it

If you are above the band and want to move, the arithmetic is unglamorous. A loss of roughly 0.5 to 1 kg a week is the rate most guidance supports, which comes from a daily energy deficit of about 500 to 1,000 kcal below maintenance. Five to ten per cent of starting weight is the loss at which blood pressure, blood glucose and lipids measurably improve, and for most people that is a far more useful first target than the edge of the band, which may be twenty kilograms away and months of effort past the point where the health benefit arrives.

If you are below the band, the same caution applies in reverse and rather more urgently. Being under BMI 18.5 carries its own risks, and unintentional loss is a reason to see a doctor rather than to adjust a target. Our calorie deficit and surplus calculators both refuse to produce a target that would take you below the healthy range for your height, and a weight at the low end of the scale is a good moment to talk to someone rather than to a calculator.

And if you are already inside the band, the most useful thing this page can tell you is that you have room. There is no evidence that the exact centre of the range is better than the upper third, and considerable evidence (particularly after 65) that a little reserve is protective. Track your waist as well as your weight, and judge both by their direction over months.

How it's calculated

The healthy weight range from BMI (WHO standard)

Lower edge = 18.5 x (height in metres)² · Upper edge = 24.9 x (height in metres)²

The international classification from WHO Technical Report Series 854 (1995), run backwards from BMI into kilograms.

Body mass index

BMI = weight (kg) ÷ (height in metres)²

Divide centimetres by 100 first. In pounds and inches the equivalent is 703 x lb ÷ in².

WHO Asia-Pacific normal range (WPRO, 2000)

Lower edge = 18.5 x (height in metres)² · Upper edge = 22.9 x (height in metres)²

A separate recognised classification shown alongside the international one, never instead of it. The 2004 WHO Consultation added action points at 23.0, 27.5, 32.5 and 37.5 rather than replacing the standard cut-offs.

The band observed in adults 65 and over (Winter 2014)

Lower edge = 23 x (height in metres)² · Upper edge = 27 x (height in metres)²

An association from a meta-analysis of 32 cohorts, not a WHO category and not a target.

Where a weight sits relative to the band

Above the top = weight − upper edge · Below the bottom = lower edge − weight · Inside = weight − lower edge

Plain subtraction, which is why the result is stated in kilograms rather than as a label.

Deurenberg (1991) body fat from BMI, age and sex

Body fat % = 1.20 x BMI + 0.23 x age − 10.8 x sex − 5.4 (sex = 1 male, 0 female)

Shown when both a weight and an age are entered. Error about ±4 percentage points, and worse for muscular or very lean people.

Worked example: a woman of 168 cm weighing 74 kg, aged 67

Convert height to metres and square it: 1.68 m, so 1.68 × 1.68 = 2.8224 m².
Lower edge of the healthy range: 18.5 × 2.8224 = 52.2 kg.
Upper edge: 24.9 × 2.8224 = 70.3 kg. The band is 18.1 kg wide.
Position: 74 − 70.3 = 3.7 kg above the top of the range.
BMI: 74 ÷ 2.8224 = 26.2, which falls in the WHO overweight (pre-obese) category, 25 to 29.9.
Distance to the nearest boundary: BMI 25 is 25 × 2.8224 = 70.6 kg, so she is 3.4 kg from the top of the normal range, and 10.7 kg from BMI 30 at 84.7 kg.
Because she is 67, the older-adult row appears: 23 × 2.8224 = 64.9 kg to 27 × 2.8224 = 76.2 kg. Her 74 kg sits inside that band, 9.1 kg above its lower edge.
Body fat estimate from Deurenberg: 1.20 × 26.22 + 0.23 × 67 − 10.8 × 0 − 5.4 = 31.5 + 15.4 − 5.4 = 41.5%, with an honest band of roughly 37 to 45 per cent.
The honest summary: above the WHO band by less than four kilograms, inside the band associated with the lowest mortality for her age group, and better served by a waist measurement than by another weigh-in.

Where this number is used in the real world

Answering what should I weigh with a defensible band instead of a single invented number.
Checking how far a current weight sits from the top or bottom of the range before setting any goal.
Setting a realistic first target: five to ten per cent of body weight usually improves blood pressure, glucose and lipids long before the edge of the band is reached.
Reading a BMI result from a clinic or an app back into kilograms you can actually act on.
Comparing the international and Asia-Pacific classifications for people of Asian ancestry, with both labelled.
Reviewing a weight after 65 against the evidence for older adults rather than against a band defined for all adults at once.
Sanity-checking an ideal weight formula figure, which always lands somewhere inside this range.

Frequently asked questions

What is a healthy weight for my height?

It is a range, not a number. Enter your height and this calculator converts the WHO band of BMI 18.5 to 24.9 into kilograms, pounds or stone for you. The band is roughly fourteen kilograms wide at 150 cm and twenty-four at 195 cm, and that width is the point: muscle mass, frame size, fat distribution and ancestry decide where inside it you belong, which no single formula output can capture.

How do I know where I sit in the healthy range?

Add your current weight in the form. The result then states your position in plain language (inside the range and a stated number of kilograms above its lower edge, or a stated number of kilograms above the top of it), along with your BMI, its WHO category, and how far you are from the nearest classification boundary. The measurement rule marks your weight on the same scale as the band edges and the BMI 30 line.

Why a range instead of a single ideal weight?

Because that is what the evidence supports. All-cause mortality against BMI describes a shallow curve with a broad flat floor, and the healthy band approximates that floor rather than identifying an optimum point. The single-number ideal weight formulas were invented between 1964 and 1983 for drug dosing, not health, and they disagree with each other by more than ten kilograms at tall heights. A range also survives real life, where weight moves a kilogram or two a day on fluid alone.

Is the healthy weight range different for men and women?

No. The WHO band is defined on BMI alone, so at a given height the range is identical for men and women. What differs is body composition: at the same BMI, women typically carry a higher percentage of body fat than men, which is why this page asks for sex only to estimate body fat and never to move the band. If you want a sex-specific single figure, that is what the four formulas on the ideal weight calculator provide.

I am above the range but not visibly fat. What does that mean?

Quite possibly muscle. BMI counts total kilograms and cannot distinguish a deadlifter from a desk worker, which is precisely why guidance since 2025 pairs BMI with a fat-distribution measure before concluding anything about excess adiposity. Check your waist-to-height ratio: if your waist is under half your height, your overweight classification is very likely a body-composition artefact. If it is over half your height, the two screens agree and the result is worth acting on.

Does the healthy range change with age?

The WHO band is defined for all adults and has not been revised by age. However, a 2014 meta-analysis of 32 cohort studies covering 197,940 older adults found all-cause mortality rising below BMI 23 in the over-65s, with no increased risk across the overweight range. This calculator shows that 23 to 27 band as a separate labelled row when you enter an age of 65 or more, described as an observed association rather than a category or a target.

Why is the Asian healthy weight range narrower?

Because at any given BMI, body fat percentage and cardiometabolic risk tend to run higher in many East, South and Southeast Asian populations than in the European populations the international cut-offs were largely derived from. The WHO, IASO and IOTF regional report of 2000 therefore set the normal band at BMI 18.5 to 22.9. The 2004 WHO Expert Consultation kept the international cut-offs and added action points at 23.0, 27.5, 32.5 and 37.5 alongside them rather than replacing them.

How fast should I move into the healthy range?

Around 0.5 to 1 kg a week is the rate most guidance supports, from a daily deficit of roughly 500 to 1,000 kcal below maintenance. Do not aim straight for the edge of the band: losing five to ten per cent of your starting weight is where blood pressure, blood glucose and lipids measurably improve, and that usually arrives long before the boundary does. Our calorie deficit calculator plans the rate and refuses any target below the healthy range for your height.

Keep going

A single number rarely tells the whole story. Alongside the healthy weight range result, the BMI calculator, the ideal weight calculator, the waist-to-height calculator, the asian BMI calculator and the calorie deficit calculator each add a different angle on the same measurements. For the reasoning behind the numbers, read BMI explained, Asian BMI cut-offs and BMI vs body fat vs waist.

Sources

WHO Expert Committee. Physical status: the use and interpretation of anthropometry. WHO Technical Report Series 854, Geneva, 1995. www.who.int/publications/i/item/9241208546
WHO/IASO/IOTF. The Asia-Pacific Perspective: Redefining Obesity and its Treatment. WPRO, 2000. iris.who.int/handle/10665/206936
WHO Expert Consultation. Appropriate body-mass index for Asian populations and its implications for policy and intervention strategies. Lancet 2004;363:157-63. doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(03)15268-3
Winter JE, MacInnis RJ, Wattanapenpaiboon N, Nowson CA. BMI and all-cause mortality in older adults: a meta-analysis. Am J Clin Nutr 2014;99:875-90. doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.113.068122
Deurenberg P, Weststrate JA, Seidell JC. Body mass index as a measure of body fatness: age- and sex-specific prediction formulas. Br J Nutr 1991;65:105-14. doi.org/10.1079/BJN19910073
Rubino F, et al. Definition and diagnostic criteria of clinical obesity. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 2025;13:221-262. doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(24)00316-4

Cite this page

Quoting a figure from here in an article, a report or a piece of coursework? Use whichever of these your style guide asks for.

APA: Campbell, R. (2026). Healthy Weight Range Calculator. Body Stats. https://bodystats.co/app/healthy-weight-range-calculator
Plain text: “Healthy Weight Range Calculator”, Body Stats, last updated 12 September 2026, https://bodystats.co/app/healthy-weight-range-calculator

Every formula and threshold on this page is written out with its primary source on our methodology page. These results are informational and educational, not a diagnosis or a substitute for professional advice. See the medical disclaimer.

Last updated 12 September 2026. Written by Rick Campbell; not medically reviewed. See review status.