Unit 1C:
The Concept of Ideal Weight


Height/Weight Tables

..... Height/weight tables have influenced conceptualization of weight, overweight, and obesity since their development by Louis Dublin in his work for Metropolitan Life during the early 1940's. Unfortunately these tables these tables do not provide a valid representation of the relationship between weight and health:1

  • Dublin reviewed insurance data and found that policy holders who weighed the least had the lowest mortality. Additionally, a majority of these individuals were also in their twenties!
  • For each height, a 30-40 pound weight range was associated with low morbidity/mortality. Dublin accounted for this discrepancy through the arbitrary development of small, medium, and large frame sizes.
  • No research confirming a statistically significant linear relationship between weight and health among this population was ever conducted.
  • The height/weight tables have been revised, but these revisions are not consistent with the 1979 Build Study upon which they are based.2
  • Traditionally, overweight and obesity have been defined as steps along the weight continuum established by the height/weight tables:3
    • Overweight & Obesity: An extension of Ideal Weight
    Overweight  10%-19% over ideal weight for height
    Mild Obesity 20%-39% over ideal weight for height
    Moderate Obesity 40%-99% over ideal weight for height
    Severe Obesity >100% over ideal weight for height
Body Mass Index (BMI)
  • BMI is perhaps the most common criterion used for determining "healthy" weight and is defined as weight in pounds multiplied by 700, then divided by height in inches squared.4
  • Individuals with BMIs of 25 to 29.9 are considered to be overweight and and those with BMI's of 30 and above are considered obese.10
  • BMIs for adults ranging from 19 to 28 have been reported as desirable by various sources. This wide range depicts the ongoing debate as to the BMI level reflective of the lowest health risk as well as the rate of increasing risk associated with rising BMI.5,6,7
  • More accurate population studies are needed to better define the concepts of healthy and excess weight which may well vary according to age, gender, ethnicity, genetics, and lifestyle.8,9
  • In Summary: BMI is a poor predictor of percent body fat, fitness level or blood pressure. Therefore:


    • "Using BMI to assess degree of adiposity and, more importantly, health risk for an individual is questionable and unwarranted due to the magnitude of error in prediction."10


Some comments regarding "ideal" height and weight tables from the experts:

Dr. Ancel Keys: World-renowned health researcher on health, diet, physical activity:
  • "arm-chair conncoctions starting with questionable assumptions and ending with three sets of standards for "body frames" which were never measured or even properly defined."11

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    Dr. William Sheldon: (Creator of the concept of the "somatotype"):
  • "this kind of foolishness gives some of our best people inferiority complexes."12

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    References

    Back to Unit 1 C: The Relationship Between Weight and Health

    © Fall 2001