Scaling of human body mass with height: the body mass index revisited.
We adapt a biomechanical argument of Rashevsky, which places limits on the stress experienced by a torso supported by the legs, to deduce that body mass m of growing children should scale as the p th power of height h with 7/3 < p < 8/3. Further arguments based on stability and heat loss suggest that p should be close to 8/3. The arguments are extended to suggest that waist circumference w should scale as hq with q near the lower end of 2/3 < or = q < or = 1. Data from Hong Kong and British children are consistent with these hypotheses.
MacKay
N J
NJ
Department of Mathematics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK. nm15@york.ac.uk
D000328:Adult; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000465:Algorithms; D000886:Anthropometry / Q000379:methods*; D001827:Body Height / Q000502:physiology*; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D055815:Young Adult