Originally Posted by Rain Man (Post 10526981)

Here's a cool table of height and weight distributions for American men and women:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/stat...es/12s0209.pdf

As a male in the 50-59 age range, my height of 6-0 is taller than 81 percent of my peers (and probably more like 85 percent since I'm half an inch taller than 6-0). My weight of about 184 pounds is more than about 37 percent of my peers. I am apparently a rangy 50-something.

The average man and woman by decade are as follows. (I'm not bothering with interpolation and am just eyeballing, so the exact figures may vary slightly.)

Men
Age 20-29 - 5-9.5 and 174 pounds
Age 30-39 - 5-9.7 and 190 pounds
Age 40-49 - 5-9.7 and 194 pounds
Age 50-59 - 5-9.7 and 196 pounds
Age 60-69 - 5-9.0 and 197 pounds
Age 70-79 - 5-8.3 and 190 pounds

Women
Age 20-29 - 5-4.7 and 150 pounds
Age 30-39 - 5-4.3 and 159 pounds
Age 40-49 - 5-4.3 and 160 pounds
Age 50-59 - 5-3.9 and 160 pounds
Age 60-69 - 5-3.8 and 163 pounds
Age 70-79 - 5-2.8 and 157 pounds

For men over the age of 40, the difference between 180 pounds and 210 pounds is a third of the population. You weigh more than about one-third of the population at 180, and you weigh more than about two-thirds of the population at 210.

Originally Posted by GordonGekko (Post 10528825)

Here is Bardem and Fassbender (who is around 6' even), so unless Bardem is wearing heels then he is much closer to 6' than 5'7...

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/wen...unselor-02.jpg

Originally Posted by LoneWolf (Post 10526397)

Is this statistically correct or something pulled from your ass?

Originally Posted by Amnorix (Post 10529143)

Beaten to the punch I see.

I admit I'm shocked. I find the difference in height by age grouping to be fairly dramatic, but I won't argue with the researchers.

Originally Posted by Rain Man (Post 10531213)

I've thought the same thing on an anecdotal basis. It seems like I see a lot of bigger kids these days compared to my youth, both in height and weight.

If the height disparity is a myth, I bet the weight disparity isn't. In my high school class, we only had two guys who were over 220 pounds, out of about 150 guys. So less than 2 percent were that size. Now, the numbers undoubtedly would have risen during our 20s, so I'm not sure how many would fall into that category ten years later. But I doubt that it would be the 16+ percent of modern 20-somethings who are over 220.

On a different topic, I find it interesting that there are roughly equal proportions of men and women in their 20s who weigh 260+ pounds, even though the women are typically 5 inches shorter. In every other age group, men are more than twice as likely to fall into that 260+ category.

So does that mean that we have an obesity epidemic that is hitting younger women in the modern world, or does that mean that a lot of larger women end up losing weight as they enter their thirties?