How do the body measurements of men and women differ?
The body measurements of a baby are usually not given with the circumference of the breast, waist and buttocks. Decisive sizes after birth are the baby’s body length, weight and head circumference. On average, newborns are around 50 cm tall and weigh around 3 to 3.5 kg.
Premature babies are naturally smaller and lighter. The average head circumference of a newborn baby at 40 weeks of pregnancy is between 35 and 37 cm. There is a rule of thumb that says that babies double their birth weight after 6 months and triple it by the age of one year.
However, this rule is only true to a limited extent, which is no cause for concern. What is striking about babies with regard to their body measurements is that they have a large head for their short body length. All in all, they have a large skin surface for their size, which causes a rapid loss of heat.
Waist to hip ratio
The waist-hip ratio is also independent of the patient’s body weight and is only based on the circumferential ratio between waist and hip. However, the waist-hip ratio is also applied independently of the patient’s height. It can also be used as the sole indicator to diagnose a patient as overweight, normal or underweight.
The Broca Index
Especially in the past, the Broca Index was often used to define the body measurements and to classify the patient as normal weight or over- or underweight. In this case the height of the patient is taken and 100 centimeters are subtracted. This would mean that a 1.76 cm tall patient would be 76, which means that the patient must not weigh more than 76 kg to be normal weight. This index is especially suitable for patients who are “normally” tall, but not for very tall or very small patients. That is why nowadays more often the BMI or abdominal girth is used as the means of choice.
