Impact of skewing in body weight upon body mass index statistics in a male model population

Authors

  • Boris Neruda Private Institute for Studies in Science and Medicine, Esch

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12697/poa.2014.23.2.05

Keywords:

body mass index, body weight, model population, skewing, statistics

Abstract

There is insufficient research concerning whether an increase in skewness of the variable body weight W would influence body mass index (BMI) statistics, and hence falsify conclusions. In this study, a model male population was generated. Dividing W by a normally distributed variable produced its skewing to the right. Apart from expected changes in the means, standard deviations, and other statistics of W and BMI, the results revealed that Benn’s index and the correlation rHBMI remained unchanged over a large range of distribution asymmetry. Counts of elements that would fall into the overweight category, decreased in favour of the obesity class – an intuitively unexpected result. A verifiable rise in skewness resulted in loss of the normal distribution assumption for W and BMI.

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Published

2014-11-07

Issue

Section

Articles