Routine Anthropometry and Arm Radiography in Assessment of Nutritional Status: Its Potential

Abstract

Elementary anthropometric and radiographic techniques, carefully executed and routinely employed in definitive surveys of healthy persons, are of potential value in assessment of patients, and provide the following: 1. Formulas to compute mean “ideal body weights” of young adults from stature (W = k h^1.7). 2. A “unit size-weight” index (uS-W) with a mean value of 100 or nearly identical to 100 for all mean “ideal weights” relative to stature. 3. The distribution of values of the uS-W index for 80 and 90% of the population of young adults around the mean. 4. Conversion of body girths and stature to ponderal equivalents such that component A reflects fatness (if present) and component B, leanness and muscularity. 5. Conversion of skeletal diameters and stature to a relative “frame” size weight, designated component C, and employed as a “reference weight” (Ref W) for the calculation of lean body weight (LBW) in the male, and “minimal weight” as well as LBW in the female. 6. Conversion of skinfold thickness to estimates of body fat by means of a surface area formulation where: Weight of fat = SA x skinfold widths x k(fat). 7. The introduction of comprehensive arm radiography to reveal presumptive estimates of body fat from SA and of the amount of bone and muscle in the arm to LBW. 8. The visualization of body shape in the somatogram, and the value of photography under strictly controlled conditions.

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