Standards of the Present for People of the Past: Height, Weight, and Mortality among Men of Amherst College, 1834–1949

John E. Murray

The Journal of Economic History, 1997, vol. 57, issue 3, 585-606

Abstract: Whether anthropometric-mortality risk relationships as found in present day populations also characterized past populations is disputed. This article finds U-shaped body mass index (BMI)-mortality risk relationships among nineteenth-century men that were similar to such relationships as found in twentieth-century men. No relationship between height and mortality could be detected. This article infers from the socioeconomic homogeneity of the sample that the BMI-mortality risk relationship, although apparently invariant with respect to time, is driven by noneconomic factors.

Date: 1997
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:jechis:v:57:y:1997:i:03:p:585-606_11

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