‘Desirable’ weight

Summary It has been known for many years that people who were much more than average weight for height tended to die young, and life insurance guidelines indicated that even average weight was a bit too much. In the last ten years there have been considerable advances in techniques for distinguishing between people who are overweight because they are too fat from those who are merely very muscular, and there have also been new surveys relating weight‐for‐height to mortality both among people taking out life insurance and in less selected populations. The new data confirm that the great majority of people who are significantly overweight are in fact too fat, and that they are prone to a variety of killing and disabling diseases. However the idea that there is an ‘ideal’ weight for a given individual is no longer tenable: the best guide is a range of weight for a given height, and subdivisions of people by frame size to narrow the desirable range of weight has no sound foundation. The newest life insurance guidelines suggest heavier desirable weight for women and short men than the old 1959 standards, but high mortality among thin people is at least partly associated with cigarette smoking. The desirable weight for men and women according to the latest actuarial data happens to coincide with the aesthetically desirable weight portrayed by the great painters of the Renaissance.