Determining an individual's ideal body weight from skeletal measurements: a new method

A method is proposed for determining an individual's ideal body weight based on the simulation of the human body as a volumetric cylinder in which height, inter-acromioclavicular distance, and humeral length are related to cylinder dimensions. Application of the method to 189 healthy volunteers showed reasonable correlation for both men and women between ideal body weight determined from the cylinder model and that obtained from Metropolitan Life tables. It is argued that the method is independent of confounding factors such as obesity or edema, with the calculations readily adaptable to simple computer techniques