Ordinary height and weight
UK scientists are looking for a 5ft 9in, 182 pound-weight man and a 5ft 4in 154 pound-weight woman to be immortalised as sculptures of Mr and Mrs Average of today
The Science Museum is looking for Mr and Mrs Average to represent the standard shape of modern Britons in an exhibition all about identity called Who Am I?
The winning entries – who for the men must also have a 38in waist and for women a 34in waist – will have their bodies scanned and then replicated in a full size nude to go on permanent display.
Members of the public, aged between 18 and 44, who match the average measurements – produced by the NHS Health Survey for England – will be given the chance.
According to writer Greg Callaghan, in a look at body shapes, in the Australian in 2008, Professor Maciej Henneberg, head of anatomical sciences at the University of Adelaide said that the first modern humans to arrive in Europe from Africa at least 20,000 years ago were as tall as we are today, only far more muscular.
By the time Shakespeare was penning Hamlet, the average European bloke had shrunk to about 165cm tall. Height only started to nudge up again after the bonuses of the industrial revolution
When Henneberg arrived In Australia in 1995 he was struck by the lack of basic research into our body shape. He found that the last major survey of body measurements had been done by Australia’s oldest manufacturer of bras and lingerie, Berlei, back in 1926, in which 5000 women were put under a tape measure.
In Oz in 1926 59kg (130 pounds) and 161cm (5 ft 3 inches)tall was average height and weight for a 28 year old woman. For a 30 year old Oz bloke then 174cm (5 ft 8 inches)tall and 72kg (158lbs)was the average weight and height.
In 2008 the average Oz woman had grown to 71kg (156lbs) and 163cm (5ft 4) tall, 12kg heavier but only 2cm taller than her great-great grandmother. The bloke has grown to 85kg(187lbs) and 178cm tall (5ft 10″), 13kg heavier than a typical male back in the 1920s.
But in the twenties, most people’s bodies were roughly the same shape and size as one another. Today, prosperous-looking people tend to be slim and poorer folk are plumper.
One result is that average clothes sizes in shops vary so much. A size 12 in one brand will be a size 16 in another. A medium shirt in one brand is sloppy around the waist, while a large will struggle to allow the button to meet.