Are you Average?

maleficent

maleficent

0
SizeUSA - The National Sizing Survey conducted by [TC]² (TC Squared) has been released with more body measurement data than has previously been available. It will take time for [TC]² and the SizeUSA sponsors to analyze this data and decide what actions, if any, they need to take in their product development.

The following table summarizes SizeUSA “Average Body” data. Some preliminary observations from this data are:
• People in this survey get larger as they get older.
• Black women are larger than White and Hispanic women of similar ages.
• Waists increase the most with age.
• Women's hips are larger than their bust, so they are more pear shaped.
• Men's chests are larger than their hips.

These are general observations. Significant factors not shown here, such as height and weight will enhance the understanding of body shapes and sizes.


Women
Bust Waist Hips
White
18-35 39.1 32.6 41.8
36-65 41.5 35.1 43.9
Bust Waist Hips
Black
18-35 41.2 34.3 44
36-65 43.5 37.4 45.9
Bust Waist Hips
Hispanic
18-35 40.3 33.7 41.8
36-65 43 36.5 43.9

Men
Chest Waist Hips
White
18-35 41.7 35.6 41.2
36-65 44.1 38.7 42.4
Chest Waist Hips
Black
18-35 42.3 35.6 42
36-65 43 37.1 41.9
Chest Waist Hips
Hispanic
18-35 42.1 36.3 41.1
36-65 43.9 38.2 41.6

Survey Size
6310 women
3691 Men

Yes, this data is old and I haven't found current data on it - and it's not really what I was looking for but I was jsut amazed to find that for my age, I'm not the average woman -I'm smaller - average being whatever sample they took this survey from. .. and I know that numbers can be tweaked to find anything and this doesn't take into account health of the sample participants... but it was interesting

What I was really looking for was how sizing has changed over the years... because I'm not sure that such an animal as a size 0 existedin the 70s and 80s and I know people aren't getting all that much thinner so adjustments were made to create that size somehow :D
 
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I'd be really curious to know where this sample was conducted? because while I'll take that I'm smaller than average -I KNOW it's not correct...
 
there've been countless articles over the years about how we're getting bigger as a population and the "average" woman is a size 12 or 14... so an average is gotten by takig the sum total and dividing it among the participants.. so it's possible based on the sample they took...
 
It seems like it IS average, in the USA. I remember reading a Glamour Magazine when I was 15. (in 1997 I think). It said the average American woman was like 5'4" and 140 lbs. I read in Glamour now that the average woman is 167lbs (no height was mentioned) with a 32.5 inch waist. It said the average woman's goal weight was 133 lbs.
 
In 2002, the average American (USAian) woman was 5'4" and weighed 163.4 pounds. For men, 5'9.5" and 191 pounds.

(Full report available here: if anyone likes data.)
 
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5'4 is the average height? wow -that's amazing...

OOOh Im almost the average american male - I feel the need to scratch :D
 
Curvie Girlie said:
I wonder what the numbers would be like if a survey was with MILLIONS of people instead of thousands?????
Click to expand...

As long as you have a random sample, accuracy doesn't improve significantly with a larger sample size. Assuming an infinitely large population, you can get a ~3% margin of error with a sample of 1,000, and a 1% margin of error with a sample of 10,000.
 
Curvie Girlie, as a social scientist I deal with surveys all the time. The size of the sample, as for selection bias, are two of the main problems researchers face. Usually, a 1-2% sample is considered a reliable measure of the whole population given that appropriate procedures are followed to avoid selection bias (for an example, they must select a sample that reflects the actual make-up of the population).

So is a sample of 10000 individuals enough to draw accurate conclusions on a population of 300 million? No, no nearly enough. But comparing similar surveys with similar sample size can give us an indication of certain patterns.

So I believe that we are getting fatter, but the size and height numbers should only be considered a vague approximation and not accurate representation.
 
WOW thanks you two!! I didn't know that!
nbc_the_more_you_know.jpg
 
A size 41 waist for a man would be pretty overweight, no... well, depends on his height.
I'm a size 29 and I find 36 is a bit big so... then again I'm not American.
 
siromar said:
Usually, a 1-2% sample is considered a reliable measure of the whole population
Click to expand...

If you're dealing with populations in the 50,000 range. For a population of 100 (or even 1,000), it's not nearly enough. For a population of 1 million or more, it's far too many.

siromar said:
So is a sample of 10000 individuals enough to draw accurate conclusions on a population of 300 million?
Click to expand...

It gives you a 99% confidence level and less than 2% margin of error. In most circles, that would be considered pretty accurate. ;)

(My degree is in psych; I don't have enough of a gut feel for the math to have gone straight stats, but I got 9 hours. When I went back to school, it was for accounting, and I did another 3 hours of stats for that. Neither in social sciences nor in auditing does your sample size increase proportionately to your population size.)
 
Allyphone,

You are correct. Technically, a sample of 1000 should represent any population with a margin of error of 3% and confidence level at 95 or so percent. However, for a population of 300 millions with a vast number of variation, you realistically need a larger number to draw accurate conclusions. It is difficult to avoid selection bias as obesity is not constant throughout the entire United States (e.g. people of Vermont are a lot thinner than people of Georgia). Some areas will always be over-represented, and some under-represented.
Surveys (not all of statistics), like economics, are not an exact science. I was not suggesting that those surveys should be dismissed, but that they should only be taken as an approximation.

Thanks for your response.
 
siromar said:
for a population of 300 millions with a vast number of variation, you realistically need a larger number to draw accurate conclusions.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'd rather solve the problem with good sampling technique / statistical adjustment for sampling bias than with a larger sample size. For exactly the reasons you gave, poor sampling technique can really skew your results. The big government-run surveys (most famously the census) adjust their numbers for estimated sampling bias, because even with 67% of the population included in the final sample, you can't draw entirely accurate conclusions without some adjustment.
 
When I went to the doctor the other day my doctor said the average weight for my height and age is 175. I was getting closer.. it surprised the heck out of me when she pulled up my growth chart, and average growth chart.. I am almost "average" :rolleyes:
 
Statisitics are just that - statistics... but numbers entertain me...

The current issue of Glamour Magazine had the following

Is your body normal?

The average woman's bra size: 36C (up from 34B just 9 years ago)
The average woman's shoe size: 8
The average woman's waist in inches around : 36.5 (they concede it's healthier to keep it under 35 inches)
Percent of women who are at least somewhat satisfied with their body weight and shape: 57

Average height in inches: 64" (that's 5'4")_
Percent of young american women who wear a size 12 dress or larger: 44 (no definition of what young equals)
Average weight, in pounds for a woman in her 20s 156.5 (the number climbs to 163 for a woman in her 30s.


~~~
So I'm quite not normal - but I knew that - my boobs are too big, my feet are too big... my waist is below average but I'm over 20lbs above the average weight for my age..

It doesn't give a lot of info about the poll sample...
 
Here's the thing about these averages. The population is becoming more overweight over time. This will skew the results showing higher size and weights than what "normal" is. If nearly 50% of the population is overweight then the number of people that are underweight and the number of people that are the right weight needs to divide the remaining 50% of the population. You end up with a much higher number of overweight people which pushes the average up. In fact at 5'4" and 163 lbs, the average is considered overweight. It doesn't even fall into the normal BMI range.
 
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