For purposes of insurance, undesired weight was considered at 20–25%, and morbid obesity at 70–100% above the desirable weight for a given frame.Īs the relation between body weight and mortality, particularly cardiac disease and diabetes, gradually became a medical concern following the Second World War, the quest for a reliable and practical index of relative weight began to assume increasing importance in the epidemiological and clinical studies that were being initiated. The average weights of those thirds were then termed ‘ideal’ weights, later less presumptuously labelled ‘desirable’ weight, for each of the three frame types. To resolve the problem, he divided the distribution of weight at a given height into thirds, and labelled them ‘small’, ‘medium’ and ‘large’ frames. However, as data accrued, he noted a rather wide range of weights for persons of the same sex and height, which he attributed to differences in body ‘shape’ or ‘frame’.
Dublin (1882–1969), a statistician and vice president of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, was the first to lead the development of tables of normal weights, based on the average weights recorded for a given height. The need for an index of normal relative body weight was recognized soon after the actuaries noted the increased death claims of their obese policyholders. What has made the problem alarming is the exponential increase in the prevalence and incidence of obesity over the past few decades this increase has led the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare it a global epidemic and worldwide public health crisis. The impact of gross obesity on quality of life began to be appreciated late in the 18th century and on ill health in the middle of 19th century, but it was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the morbid complications and increased mortality of obesity began to be documented by the insurance industry. For much of human history, corpulence was considered a sign of good health and fat an advantage. Obesity as a disease, with well-defined complications, is approximately one century old. A tireless promoter of statistical data collection based on standard methods and definitions, Quetelet organized in 1853 the first International Statistical Congress, which launched the development of ‘a uniform nomenclature of the causes of death applicable to all countries’, progenitor of the current International Classification of Diseases.Īdolphe Quetelet, Body Mass Index, International Classification of Diseases, obesity, probability calculus, Quetelet Index, statistics His principal work, ‘A Treatise of Man and the development of his faculties’ published in 1835 is considered ‘one of the greatest books of the 19th century’. His pioneering cross-sectional studies of human growth led him to conclude that other than the spurts of growth after birth and during puberty, ‘the weight increases as the square of the height’, known as the Quetelet Index until it was termed the Body Mass Index in 1972 by Ancel Keys (1904–2004).įor his application of comparative statistics to social conditions and moral issues, Quetelet is considered a founder of the social sciences. Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874) was a Belgian mathematician, astronomer and statistician, who developed a passionate interest in probability calculus that he applied to study human physical characteristics and social aptitudes. It became evident then that the best index was the ratio of the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters, or the Quetelet Index described in 1832. The quest for a practical index of relative body weight that began shortly after actuaries reported the increased mortality of their overweight policyholders culminated after World War II, when the relationship between weight and cardiovascular disease became the subject of epidemiological studies.