So what do you reckon is the best-fit exponent e in the equation wt = c*ht^e , based on these data? WFL On 1/24/15, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
The following pictures https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3507527/WomenHgtWgt6.png https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3507527/MenHgtWgt2.png were produced by me (Warren D. Smith) 2015, with help from Prof. Daniel Kaplan. One shows women, the other men, age range 25-59.
Explanation of each picture: The "x" in both pictures shows the mean height and mean weight for the entire US adult population (all ages>19, during years 2007-2010) according to the CDC. The two thick black curves show the weight range, according to Metropolitan Life Insurance Co mortality data (1943, revised 1983, and I have removed their asinine adjustments for clothing weight and shoe height) you want to be in to minimize your mortality. Note, for very tall or short women/men, MetLife did not have enough data, which is why these curves stop. The thin black curve shows a mathematical fit by me, to the geometric mean of the lower & upper MetLife curves; it can be used in an effort to try to figure out the "ideal weights" for especially tall or short people. The tall thin boxes show the optimum height to be (minimizing mortality) which according to USA height distribution data at different ages examined by me, is 5'5"-5'6" for men, and 5'2"-5'3" for women. Finally, what about the bluish/purplish cloud? For every women age 25-59 (or man) examined by the NHANES 1999-2004 national survey measuring some 31000 people, their (height,weight) is plotted using a little circle. Each picture presumably contains about 10000 such little circles in all. People who were off image (mainly, off the top, since too obese) are omitted. This gives you some idea of the distribution of heights & weights in the USA age 25-59 population. As you can see, the US population is mostly quite overweight, and only something like 10% of the population lies within the MetLife healthiest-weight-range between the two thick black curves. Steven Halls MD has disputed the MetLife weight recommendations, feeling they are "unrealistic" especially for tall & short people. But I dispute his disputation, because from the scatterplot it seems the MetLife range (and its extrapolation to taller & shorter) is attainable. I have also collected published height & weight data about especially tall and excellent athletes up to 7'4" (who presumably are atypically healthy) and found they straddle the thin black curves. This also suggests my thin black curve is not "unrealistic" as a health goal, even for very tall people. For very short people, I have not been able to get much data, so perhaps my MetLife-extrapolating fit curves might be unrealistic for them, I do not know. I found a few very short famous athletes (Bill Shoemaker & Julie Krone, two of the best jockeys ever) who both were lighter than my curve.
--Warren D. Smith http://rangevoting.org
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