Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quatelet (1796-1874) is a celebrated Belgian mathematician, astronomer, statistician and sociologist, famous for his statistical prowess and his widely used "Quatelet Index " or the body mass index. He graduated out of University of Ghent with a doctorate in mathematics and then set out to study the new field of "social sciences" which only included Astronomy at the time. Somewhere around 1830, Quatelet emerged as a firm believer in the influence of statistics and probability in the day-to-day human affairs. He found it possible to gather information about the regular day-to-day life of any cross-section of the population using the same statistical techniques he was so well versed in. The body mass index (BMI) is the relationship between the height and weight of an individual, which directly correlates to the body fat contained within the body and explains the degree of health risk the person has. It is measured as BMI = body weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. The Body Mass Index is quite a useful statistic and has been in use over the years all over the world. It determines the degree of healthiness one enjoys. The BMI assesses your weight in relation to your height. A healthy BMI for an adult generally falls between 18.5 and 25. If the BMI is more than 25, the individuals are probably classified as overweight, and if it is 30 or higher, one is considered obese, and 40 or higher, extremely obese. |
