100 Years of Heights and Weights

SUMMARY Height and weight data for Great Britain exist back to 1883 (Report of the Anthropometric Committee of the British Association) and even before. These have been reviewed up to the present date: in particular, a long series for army recruits has been analysed, helping considerably in establishing a trend, and recent surveys have established a secure base for future comparisons at national level. But many other sets of data fit the general pattern of increasing heights and weights over the past century at all ages. Quetelet's index w/h 2 is recommended as a good indicator of ‘weight for height’ in adult populations; for children it is still at the descriptive stage. A method is suggested for calculating the index and its limits when the complete distribution of heights and weights is unknown, as in many historical series. Finally, class differences are investigated and appear to have narrowed over a century.