STANDARDS OF THE PRESENT FOR PEOPLE OF THE PAST - HEIGHT, WEIGHT, ANDMORTALITY AMONG MEN OF AMHERST-COLLEGE, 1834-1949

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