Asymmetrical Information

Ah, crap. My (now 7 mo. old son) was 23" and 9 lbs 11 oz at birth. He is already wearing 18-24mo clothes.

(OT RANT: Where the hell do you get 18-24mo 'Baby's First Christmas Clothes'?)

6´2 144! Wow...I´m a skinny male (size 32 waist) and I´m about 6´1.5 and 155-160 pounds. And females supposedly have more body fat (on average) than males. So...you must be "seriously skinny" also (I´m assuming). Are you sure your true career calling is not economics journalism (which you are admittedly quite good at) but the WNBA?

I have no clue of my exact "stats" at birth but I think my mom told me I was "medium-long". However my brother was "very long" and he is now about 6´2 at age 14. Also, I´m interested in how much of a baby´s relative "fatness" is due to the mother´s diet and how much is due to genetics (or even other factors such as smoking, which supposedly causes "low birth weight").

Your seriously skinny friends are starving themselves to ward off the fat!!!

I dunno -- my cousin was a seriously fat baby (we called her "Michelin baby" due to the rolls of fat everywhere) and she's 21 now and has been skinny all through her teen years.

Of course, I've got a 10-month-old baby who now wears 18 mo - 24 mo clothes (due to rotundity, not height) and a 2.5-yr-old who hasn't gained any weight this year but grown quite a few inches. I assume she's going to be tall because my husband and both his sisters are >= 6 ft tall (though my dad was 6 ft, and I'm only 5'4".)

When I was in the hospital for the first birth, there was a giganto-baby there... and her parents were like Vikings. So I guess what I'm saying is that the size of the parents might be a little more correlated with how the kids end up (well, that's for non-immigrants here. When you've had adequate nutrition since before birth, genetics are the controlling factor for height. That may not be true for immigrants.)

It's not whether a baby wes fat - most babies are at some point - but how big at birth.

I was over 10 lbs and am now a normalish 6-0, 200 (180 when I get in shape, just wait). One kid in our neighborhood was over 12 lbs and turned out similarly.

I find the birth size - IQ relationship mentioned in the article very, very plausible.

I?m about 6?1.5 and 155-160 pounds. And females supposedly have more body fat (on average) than males. So...you must be "seriously skinny" also (I?m assuming).

But as a male, you likely have bigger muscles and bones that are both larger and more dense. If she weighed the same as you, she would probably be a little chubby.

There is a post about Birth weight/IQ here:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/12/birth-weight-and-iq.php

Not sure how much corrolation there is here, but my son, who shocked the delivery team with visible muscle definition, now splits firewood for amusement and is disappointed that he can't find a sledge heavier than 20 lbs.

At least from personal experience I can attest that bald babies tend to grow up bald as well..

While all babies resemble fat little old men, only half become them.

Hm. My sister was the longest one of all us babies at 23 inches, yet at 18 yrs old is now the shortest one of all three of us kids. So dunno if that correlation works in my case....

But as a male, you likely have bigger muscles and bones that are both larger and more dense. If she weighed the same as you, she would probably be a little chubby.
Ahh OK...thanks for the pointer! I'm sure it would depend on plenty of individual variations too (how much she works out, etc.).

I was 24 inches long and weighted in at 9lbs 7oz.
I'm only 5ft 3-1/2in tall and weigh way to much, but was 110lbs from my late teens to my late 20s.

Re: the Sean/Jane BMI/gender debate. The BMI index is supposed to be gender-neutral, and according to the BMI calculator linked in the post, both Sean and Jane are on the low end of normal weight.

But of course, BMI is a very crude measure of health, when the likes of Michael Jordan come out "overweight."

And take a look at this Scientific American article on the overrated myths about obesity.

Babies of impressive size are important.

"Posters showing a better future or model behavior have been part of Chinese political culture for a long time and were used as an instrument for political and economic purposes. These colorful images of the perfect society with the most impressive sized babies and fruit seem most idyllic." - from a new 2006 wall calendar of Chinese propaganda poster, full of large babies.

HA! I'm skinnier than our lovely bloghostess!

Of course, I'm also four inches shorter :-). I think I was 21" and 6lbs 9oz at birth, I ended up 5'10" 140lbs. Of course, I'm only 23, and if my dad is any indication I'm likely to gain some weight starting about 35 or 40.

I'm 5'2" and weigh about the same as Jane. I was born 21.5" and 8lb 2oz. It's the only time in my life I've ever been above-average in height.

I actually read the exact opposite thing, that the size of the person (assuming proper food and health throughout pregnancy of the mother and food and health of the child throughout life) that there is no correlation between a size of a baby at birth vs. their height 20 years later.

(A note for Jane's readers who don't know her, when we were kids there were 5 of us who used to play together, Jane, 19 months my junior and the youngest of the group, was always the tallest and I, the oldest by at least six months ...perhaps more... was always the shortest by a significant margin.)

Grandson #2 was 99th percentile in everything. Now 14, he's 6'2", 210#, wears a size 15 shoe and is still growing. This was no surprise, since son-in-law is 6'7".

And as far as your weight, think of the classic Peanuts cartoon, and get a good wife, like I did. I weighed 158# (6'2")when I got married at 25. I now have to work at staying below 230. Unfortunately, I'm losing that battle. Or
you can wait for menopause; going by the examples I know, that seems to be good for 20 to 40 extra pounds within a couple of years.

I was kind of an outlier -- 23" and 5 lbs 15 oz. I grew up to by 6'2" and probably could stand to lose 40 lbs of my current 230. But maybe I'm just weak-willed. ;-)

Out 10 1/2 lb boy is nearly 7 now. And anyone looking at him but not knowing him would probably guess that he was 1 - 2 years younger!

In fact 4 of our 5 children were 7 lb 15 oz or bigger at birth and only one of them is close to average height!

My son weighed under 6 pounds when born, but the doctors had to induce because of Rh problems. He's a fit 210 lbs 6'5" Marine captain now. (His show size topped out at 15 when he was a H.S. sophomore, which effectively put an end to his varsity soccer playing--they don't (or didn't then) make soccer shoes over size 14.)

I just want to thank everyone for not turning this into a why-the-poor-are-overweight debate.

There goes the civility in this thread now that Denise started picking on poor, fat people...

So far in the course of this post/thread, TWO women have openly admitted their precise weight.

I assume the other five horsemen of the apocalypse will be along shortly?

And how do we KNOW that anony-mouse?

I suspect Jane is actually 247lbs and 4'2"

well, except that I know better, but still...

6' 2" and a 144.

Wow, when I was in the Marines as a youth I was 6' 2' and 180 pounds with a 32 inch waist. Soon after I left the Marines and got married I went to 200 lbs, and a 36 inch waist.

Maybe you need get to get married. It is fairly typical for most people to gain weight afterwards.

Me: preemie born in 1960 at 4lbs 5oz not expected to live. Now 6'00" 215. The smaller they are....

Me too. I weighed 6# 10oz, and was 23" long.

As an adult, I'm only 5' 10" (I'm female.)

My father is 6' 5", and all over my brothers are at least 6' 2". Our mother was very short, only 5' 4". And my dad's mom was even shorter at 5 feet.

None of us are fat, or ever were. We're all runners. But only one of us is endomorph....the rest of us are more meso types.

My daugher was born 18" long, and made it to 5' 3"; and my son was born a good 21 inches long, and only made it to 5' 10" (his father was short- 5' 10"; that'll teach me to marry short men.)

My son was stocky as a toddler, almost buff in his musculature - we used to call him BamBam. My daughter was always a bit on the thinner side...but both have matured into mesomorphs.

I probably TMI, but the subject intrigues me. I've always been interested in genetics v. environment, and find myself wondering how much of this is due to the nutritional habits we instill.

My mother was not a fan of simple sugars, and we rarely drank things like pop. Our beverage of choice was milk. Same with my kids.

well, i'll shut up now.

cat

I told my wife about this threaqd and she went looking for regression formulas for height/weight projections based in birth stats (my wife is a statistician...).

She found a formula that said Height: Mean parents +(-) 2.5 ins (+ for male, - for female).

Of course, as a statistician, she adamantly points out these kind of things may be valid for populations, but MAY NOT be used to predict individual statistics.

(Of course, everyone does...)

Tall women are particularily attractive-it must be a burden for you.

I was 10 lbs. 8 oz at birth.

I'm now 6' tall and have never weighed more than 165, usually hovering around 145. As my mom likes to say, I was born and then I got taller.

Six-two & 144 lbs. isn't so thin. When I reached 6'2" in my teens I weighed 139.

Compared to your average fashion model in the 6-foot range (or if you want to stay in the arena of anorexic political pundits, Ann Coulter) being 6-foot-2 and 144 pounds is downright doughy, but well within the normal range of your average above-average height woman who actually has a normal diet.

My eldest was 5#, 1 1/4 oz, 6 weeks premie. He weighed 26# at 6 months and has been large ever since, in the range of 6', 1" & 250-280# since attaining full growth. May have some fat on him, but not much. Huge limbs. Didn't get 'em from me. I'm 6', 2" & 170ish. I can't remember for the life of me how long he was and his Mom & I divorced many years ago. She has birth cert.

Sure, you can say this is about statistics all you want, but it's really just about the conspiracy to keep the short and average man (and woman) down.

Thanks for the link, Dave Munger. I'd like to opine about BMI: It's mostly bull. My evidence, admittedly anecdotal, is two USAF buddies and my 7-year-old granddaughter. She is tiny- thin limbs & petite-squared stature, but she weighs 52#. Her school sent a BMI-inspired note home says she's obese. The Air Force dudes, both former college linebackers in the nabe of 6', 1" & 230 #, used to really punish themselves with workouts & diet trying to make "official weight standards". There's not a single ounce of fat on any of the three. One would think researchers & CDC would know that muscle is more dense than fat? Maybe they do, but that wouldn't fit their desired outcome? USAF, many, many years ago, began making exception for this body type on basis of specific density tests. I think we're into mucho propaganda here.

Aleksandr Karelin, the great greco-roman wrestler from Russia was reputed to have weighed 15 pounds at birth. Almost certainly an exageration, but he did grow to be an exceptionally large man. He wrestled at 300 pounds - and only 7% body fat. He took olympic gold three times and silver once before retiring after his first loss in thirteen years.

Some images are here: http://www.olympic.org/uk/athletes/heroes/bio_uk.asp?PAR_I_ID=119639

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