The Skeleton Frame as a Crucial Part of Body Weight: Comparison to Metropolitan Life Insurance Data

Nicolaus Dahlmann | Dietrich Klingm?ller

Abstract: Background: The study presents a new anthropometric model, Dahlmann-Body-Analysis (DBA), for the specific estimation of reference body weight (Ref-W) based on the individual structure of skeleton frame. Subjects/ Methods: Estimation of the Ref-W is based on measurements of height (Ht), body weight (W) and hand circumference (HdC) in consideration of sex to classify the skeleton frame into small, medium and large (sSkFr, mSkFr, lSkFr). Calculations were performed in 90 obese German subjects (BMI ? 30 kg/m2), aged 18-65 years. Results were compared with the Metropolitan Life Insurance (MLI) body weight, skeleton frame adjusted (MLI-Ws). Results: The mean reference weight estimates of men (women) ? standard deviation were 71.7 ? 5.5 (60.7 ? 4.5) kg for Ref-W and 71.2 ? 6.8 (59.7 ? 5.6) kg for MLI-Ws. Pearson correlation coefficients (r) and Lin?s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) were r = 0.98 and CCC = 0.96 for men and r = 0.92 and CCC = 0.88 for women, respectively. Bland-Altman plot showed limits of agreement between Ref-W and MLI-Ws of 4.1 kg to -3.1 kg (range: 7.2 kg) for men and 4.7 kg to ? 6.0 kg (range: 10.7 kg) for women. MLI-Ws exhibited an average positive bias of 0.49 kg for men and 0.95 kg for women. Over all, there is a strong concordance and reproducibility between the DBA and MLI data sets. Conclusions: The implementation of the hand circumference (HdC) into the DBA model as a proxy for skeleton frame is essential for the final body weight and resulted in a strong concordance with MLI data. These findings indicate that the DBA model may reflect the body shape of the white American population classified as "ideal" at that time.

Keywords: body composition analysis, reference weight, skeleton frame, public health

Edition: Volume 12 Issue 2, February 2023,

Pages: 369 - 376