Oh yes, because we all live in fantasy world where quality historical data is easily available… What is wrong with you people...
Anyway, I dug through to what are pretty much punched card readouts from NHANES I dataset that somehow nobody ever bothered to convert to anything more reasonable.
Here are 10th to 90th percentile of weight in kg, height in cm, and BMI (including children):
NHANES I was 1971-75, already quite a bit into obesity epidemic. These are not anything like pre-epidemic numbers, but good luck finding data much earlier than that.
Data for 2007 says 26th percentile has BMI 25, 73th has BMI 30, so I’ll linearly extrapolate median adult American BMI to be 27.3 - i.e. median person weights 13% more than if obesity epidemic stayed at early 1970s’ level (and let’s guess 20% more than if it never happened).
Oh yes, because we all live in fantasy world where quality historical data is easily available… What is wrong with you people...
Anyway, I dug through to what are pretty much punched card readouts from NHANES I dataset that somehow nobody ever bothered to convert to anything more reasonable.
Here are 10th to 90th percentile of weight in kg, height in cm, and BMI (including children):
18.37kg, 37.76kg, 51.14kg, 56.81kg, 61.46kg, 66.45kg, 71.78kg, 78.13kg, 86.75kg
109.3cm, 144.9cm, 155.5cm, 159.1cm, 162.2cm, 165.2cm, 168.4cm, 172.4cm, 177.4cm
BMI: 15.7, 17.6, 19.6, 21.1, 22.5, 24.0, 25.6, 27.5, 30.5
Age >= 18 only:
52.16kg, 56.81kg, 60.55kg, 64.3kg, 68.15kg, 72.23kg, 77.0kg, 82.33kg, 90.26kg
155.3 cm, 158.4 cm, 160.9 cm, 163.3 cm, 165.7 cm, 168.2 cm, 171.1 cm, 174.6 cm, 179.0 cm
BMI: 19.7, 21.1, 22.3, 23.4, 24.5, 25.8, 27.1, 28.9, 31.8
NHANES I was 1971-75, already quite a bit into obesity epidemic. These are not anything like pre-epidemic numbers, but good luck finding data much earlier than that.
Data for 2007 says 26th percentile has BMI 25, 73th has BMI 30, so I’ll linearly extrapolate median adult American BMI to be 27.3 - i.e. median person weights 13% more than if obesity epidemic stayed at early 1970s’ level (and let’s guess 20% more than if it never happened).