Methodology

The standard: one ratio, one line

Army Directive 2026-13, signed by the Secretary of the Army on 1 July 2026 and effective 7 July 2026, made the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) the Army's sole body composition standard. The method is a single division:

WHtR = waist circumference at the navel ÷ height, in the same units.

Record a ratio strictly below 0.55 and the Soldier meets the standard. Record 0.550 or above and the Soldier does not. The same threshold applies to every Soldier — no variation by age, sex or weight — and the measurement is taken at least twice per calendar year for Regular Army, National Guard and Reserve Soldiers, and for USMA and ROTC cadets. Results are recorded on DA Form 5500 and entered in ATIS.

Because the ratio is unit-free, inches and centimetres give the identical result. What is not unit-free is the recording: the Army records in inches and half-inch steps, and the recording rules below are part of the method, not a rounding convenience. The homepage WHtR calculator applies them exactly; so does the dedicated female WHtR page, because the standard it applies is the same one.

How a measurement is taken: EXORD 182-26, Annex A

The measurement protocol is set by HQDA EXORD 182-26, Annex A. It exists so that one unit's measurement of a Soldier matches another unit's measurement of the same Soldier on the same day.

Height

Height is measured in socks, without shoes, and recorded to the nearest half inch.

Waist

The waist is measured at the navel with a non-stretch fiberglass tape held parallel to the floor, at the end of a normal breath out. It is measured three times. Each of the three readings is rounded down to the nearest half inch, and the recorded waist is the average of the three rounded readings. If one reading differs from the other two by more than an inch, an additional measurement is taken and the three closest readings are averaged.

Recording the ratio

The ratio is computed from the recorded height and the recorded waist, and is itself recorded to three decimal places without rounding — the figure is truncated, so digits past the third decimal are simply disregarded. The EXORD's own worked example shows what that means at the boundary: a computed ratio of 0.549888 is recorded as 0.549 and meets the standard. The same rules cut the other way at the line itself: at 70 in tall, a 38.5 in waist records exactly 0.550, and 0.550 does not meet a standard set at below 0.55.

Every calculator on this site follows this sequence — record the height, round each waist reading down, average, divide, truncate to three decimals — rather than dividing the raw numbers a visitor types in. That is why a waist entered as 38.4 in is shown the way a unit would record it: 38.0 in.

The Figure B-1 chart

Annex A publishes the standard as a screening table, Figure B-1: for every height from 48 to 83.5 in, in half-inch steps, the maximum waist whose recorded ratio stays below 0.55. Each row's maximum is the largest half-inch waist under the line at that height — at 70 in it is 38 in (ratio 0.542); at 70.5 in it is 38.5 in; at 71 in it is 39 in.

The WHtR chart page reproduces Figure B-1 in full, and the figures are also generated arithmetically from the 0.55 rule: the table and the arithmetic agree row for row, which is how the chart was verified. For a single height, including one outside the printed table's range, the maximum waist calculator applies the same rule directly.

What was rescinded

Army Directive 2026-13 did not add WHtR alongside the old system; it replaced the old system. Rescinded in the same stroke:

• The height/weight screening tables of AR 600-9 — there is no longer a screening weight that sends a Soldier to be taped, because there is no tape test to be sent to.
• Both circumference tape tests — the 2023 one-site method and the older multi-site method — along with the age- and sex-grouped body fat percentage maximums they measured against.
• The supplemental body fat assessments (DXA, bioelectrical impedance, BOD POD). The directive is explicit that no tape result and no supplemental scan can overturn a WHtR result.
• The fitness-test score exemptions — the 465-point AFT exemption and the earlier 540-point ACFT-era exemption. WHtR is measured regardless of fitness-test score.
• DA Form 5501, the former female body composition form, was discontinued; DA Form 5500 is now the one form for everyone.

The retired calculators are preserved on the retired methods page for one reason only: historical records were produced under those rules and still need reading. Nothing about them is a current standard, an alternative assessment, or a way to challenge a WHtR reading.

If a reading fails

A first reading at or above 0.550 does not by itself decide anything. The process that follows is fixed:

1. Same-day confirmation. The reading is confirmed the same day by a different measurement team, under the same Annex A protocol.

2. Flag and ABCP enrollment. If the confirmation also records 0.550 or above, the Soldier is flagged and enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program (ABCP) — the program governed by AR 600-9 and run by the Army Resilience Directorate — with progress assessed on the schedule the commander sets. The confirmed result is recorded on DA Form 5500 and in ATIS. The ABCP page works through what the program's target means in inches at a given height.

3. The 180-day protection. HQDA is running a 180-day assessment of the new standard, and until that review completes and further guidance issues, no Soldier is separated for a WHtR failure. The review runs to around late December 2026 and may adjust the standard or its procedures; this site tracks the official sources and updates when they change, as the editorial policy sets out.

How this site applies the method

Three commitments turn the method above into the tools on this site. First, the calculators implement the recording rules, not just the division — height to the nearest half inch, each waist reading rounded down before averaging, the ratio truncated to three decimals — so the number a calculator shows is the number a unit would record from the same measurements. Second, every figure is verified against the sources, not against other calculators: the WHtR calculators were checked against Figure B-1 at every published height and against the EXORD's own recording example, and every worked example printed on this site is generated by the same calculation engine the calculators use, so an example cannot drift from the tool it illustrates. Third, sources live where the claims live — each tool page names the sources for its own figures, and this page carries the full set for the method as a whole.

Limitations

This site is unofficial. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Army or the Department of Defense, and no result it produces is an official determination — only a measurement taken by a Soldier's unit, under the Annex A protocol, decides whether that Soldier meets the standard. A home measurement is an estimate of that official result, and technique moves it: tape placement at the navel, tape level all the way round, and a normal breath out can each move a reading by a half-inch step — the whole margin, at the boundary.

The standard itself is also, for now, provisional in one respect: the 180-day HQDA assessment is still running, and the follow-on guidance may adjust the threshold, the procedures, or the treatment of open ABCP cases. Pages here describe the standard as it stands in the published directive and EXORD today, and say so where the review touches a claim. Finally, this site gives no medical advice: WHtR is an administrative standard, not a health assessment, and questions about an individual Soldier's health belong with a medical provider.

Sources

Every rule on this page traces to an official source, named here in full:

• Army Directive 2026-13 — the directive itself (Army Publishing Directorate), setting WHtR below 0.55 as the sole standard and rescinding the tape tests, screening tables, supplemental assessments and fitness-test exemptions.
• HQDA EXORD 182-26, Annex A — the implementing guidance: the measurement and recording protocol and the Figure B-1 maximum-waist screening table (48–83.5 in).
• Army modifies body composition program, adopts waist-to-height ratio — the Army Public Affairs announcement of the directive on Army.mil (7 July 2026).
• The full measure: The Army's new WHtR standard — Army.mil implementation feature on how the standard is applied, measured and recorded.
• Army Body Composition Program — the Army Resilience Directorate's official ABCP page, the program operated under AR 600-9 into which confirmed failures are enrolled.

AR 600-9 remains the governing regulation for the ABCP itself; where the directive and the regulation speak to the same point during the transition, the directive — the later, specific authority — is what this site follows, and the difference is noted where it matters.