How to Measure Height Accurately: Tools and Steps

To measure height accurately, stand barefoot against a stadiometer or a flat wall and lower a flat headpiece onto the top of your head. Your heels, buttocks, shoulder blades and the back of your head touch the board, and your eyes look straight ahead. The WHO growth assessment course records height to the last completed 0.1 cm, which is 1 mm. Measure at the same time of day each time, because height drops slightly in the hours after you get up.

Measuring standing height, step by step

This method follows the WHO training module for measuring children, and it works the same way for adults. A height board with a sliding headpiece, called a stadiometer, gives the most repeatable result.

1. Place the stadiometer on a level, hard floor, or use a flat wall with no skirting board at the bottom.
2. Remove shoes, socks, caps and hair clips, and undo buns or braids that sit on top of the head.
3. Stand with your feet flat on the floor and your back to the board. The back of the head, shoulder blades, buttocks, calves and heels should touch it.
4. Keep your head level: a line from the ear opening to the lower edge of the eye socket runs parallel to the floor. This position is called the Frankfurt plane.
5. Lower the headpiece until it rests firmly on the top of the head and presses the hair down.
6. Read the scale with your eyes level with the headpiece, and note the last full millimetre you can see.

The WHO module allows for bodies that cannot touch the board at every point. For a child with a larger build, WHO accepts one or more contact points touching the board, with the trunk balanced over the waist and not leaning back or forward.

Take two readings and use the average, as Omace's instructions for its height instruments advise. If the two readings differ by more than a few millimetres, check the posture and measure again.

Measuring your height alone at home

You can get close to a clinic reading with a wall, a hardback book and a metal tape measure. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gives this method for measuring children at home:

1. Stand on a firm floor such as tile or wood, not carpet, against a plain wall without moulding.
2. Keep your feet flat and together against the wall, legs straight, arms at your sides and shoulders level.
3. Rest a flat, rigid ruler or book on top of your head at a right angle to the wall.
4. Mark the wall lightly where the bottom edge of the book meets it.
5. Step away and measure from the floor to the mark with a metal tape measure.

The CDC asks for the result to the nearest 1/8 inch or 0.1 cm. On your own, the hard part is keeping the book level while you mark the wall, so a second person or a mirror in front of you helps.

Height measuring tools compared

Omace sells three types of height measuring instruments for standing height and one for babies. The table compares them with the wall-and-book method, with Omace store prices (October 2026).

The ICDS-SDM stature meter is a retractable steel tape fixed to the wall, with cm and inch markings and no batteries. The ICDS-SDM Stadiometer measures up to 2 m in 1 mm divisions, stands on its own 340 × 410 mm base, weighs 1.9 kg and comes apart into sections for carrying. The ultrasonic height and weight machine measures height without touching the head and adds weight up to 200 kg and 18 body metrics in one step. Its body-fat reading passes a small current through the hands, so don't use that function if you have a pacemaker or other implanted electronic device, or during pregnancy. Height and weight alone are fine. For a detailed look at the free-standing type, read what is a stadiometer.

Babies and toddlers: length instead of height

Children under 2 are measured lying down. The WHO module says to measure recumbent length below age 2 and standing height from age 2, once the child can stand.

The two methods do not give the same number. According to WHO, standing height is about 0.7 cm less than recumbent length, and the WHO growth standards build that difference in. If a child under 2 will only stand, add 0.7 cm to the height. If a child aged 2 or older cannot stand, subtract 0.7 cm from the length.

Lying length needs a length board and two people: one holds the head against the fixed headboard, the other straightens the legs and slides the footboard to the heels. The guide on how to use an infantometer walks through it.

Common errors that throw a reading off

• Time of day. A study of 53 schoolchildren in Archives of Disease in Childhood found they lost about 0.5 cm of height between 9 am and 1 pm. After six hours up, there was almost no further loss. Measure at the same time of day for every comparison.
• Shoes, socks and hair. A thick sole or a hair bun adds height that is not yours.
• The floor. Carpet, a mat or an uneven floor tilts the body and the instrument.
• A skirting board. It pushes the heels away from the wall and shifts a wall tape's zero point.
• Head tilt. Chin up or chin down changes the reading; keep the line of sight parallel to the floor.
• Reading from an angle. Looking up or down at the scale shifts the number; read at eye level.
• A loose or worn instrument. WHO advises measuring rods of known length when a height board is assembled, and keeping its joints tight and straight.

Converting centimetres to feet and inches

One inch is exactly 2.54 cm, a definition the US National Institute of Standards and Technology traces to 1959. To convert, divide your height in centimetres by 2.54 to get inches, then divide by 12 for feet.

Clinics and growth charts work in centimetres to one decimal place, so record the centimetre reading first and convert afterwards.

What your height is used for: BMI and growth charts

Height turns a weight into a health measure. The World Health Organization calculates BMI as weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared, so a height error changes the BMI too. WHO defines adult overweight as a BMI of 25 or more.

A consensus of Indian experts sets lower cut-offs. A review in Nutrients describes a consensus for Asian Indians of 23–24.9 for overweight and 25 or more for obesity. You can work out your own figure on Omace's BMI calculator.

For children, height is plotted on a growth chart by age, such as the boys growth chart based on WHO standards. A single reading means little on its own; a paediatrician should assess a child's growth over several measurements. Smart scales also need your height, because they use it to estimate body fat, BMI and the other values in their apps.

Height measuring in schools, clinics and Anganwadi centres

India's child nutrition programme depends on accurate height. A Ministry of Women and Child Development release of March 2023 says revised guidelines aim to equip every Anganwadi centre with growth monitoring devices. The devices named are an infantometer, a stadiometer and weighing scales for mother and infant.

Omace's ICDS-SDM Stadiometer, ICDS-SDM stature meter and Omace ICDS-IFM Infantometer are made in India and sold for this kind of use in homes, schools, clinics and ICDS centres. Omace Brands Private Limited has made and supplied weighing scales in India since 1994, from Bagru, Jaipur. Its height instruments bought from the Omace store carry a 2-year warranty on manufacturing defects and are delivered across India. More about Omace. Omace scales are made in India. As a manufacturer, Omace Brands Private Limited holds ISO 9001:2015, ISO 13485:2016 and EU MDR quality certificates, and CE and US FDA compliance certificates; each is listed with its certificate number on the Omace certificates page.