The Physics Factbook
Edited by Glenn Elert -- Written by his students
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|Boone, Kevin. Standard man: average (male) values for various biophysical values. The K-Zone,||[table excerpt]
|"Heaviest Man." Guinness World Records 1998. New York: Time, 371.||"The heaviest person in medical history was Jon Brower Minnoch of Bainbridge, WA, who had been obese since childhood. The 6-ft.-in. former taxi driver weighed 392 pounds in 1963 and 975 pounds in September 1976. In March 1978, Minnoch was rushed to University Hospital, Seattle, saturated with fluid and suffering from heart and respiratory failure. Consultant endocrinologist Dr. Robert Schwartz calculated that Minnoch must have weighed more than 1,400 pounds when he was admitted. After nearly 16 months on a 1,200-calorie-a-day diet, Minnoch was discharged at 476 pounds. In October 1981, he had to be readmitted, having put on 197 pounds. When he died on September 10, 1983 he weighed more than 798 pounds"||< 635 kg|
|Durney, Carl H. Habib Massoudi, & Magdy F. lskander. Table 5.4. Average Weight And Height And Calculated Values Of b For Prolate Spheroidal Models Of Human-Body Types. Radiofrequency Radiation Dosimetry Handbook. University of Utah, October 1986.||
|Water: Drink Up! Arkansas Families. University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service.||"In terms of volume, the total body water in a man of average weight (70 kg or 154 lbs) is roughly 40 L (10.6 gallons)."||70 kg|
|Health. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1999.||[diagram]||43 - 141 kg|
Welcome to America -- Land of the Fat.
In today's society it is quiet difficult to sum up what is the average mass of an adult. This is due to the wide range of diversity of humans. They come in all shapes and sizes. But might as well try!
The University of Arkansas defines the average all around body weight of an adult to be roughly 70 kilograms or 154 pounds (1pound is about 0.4539 kg). But that clearly cannot be 100% accurate. I myself weight in at 79 kg (175 lbs), yet I am not obese or overweight. There are factors to consider. Height is one of the biggest factors. For a person 150 cm tall, 79 kg would be overweight, but I am 190 cm and therefore 79 kg is just right due to more skin, bone and muscle. Body frames also play a role in mass of humans. A skinny framed man average mass is around the 49 kg neighborhood while a larger frame person (fat man) is around the 141 kg neighborhood. Do you get it yet? Well think of this. Think of yourself as a swimming pool. If you were a large swimming pool the you would need a lot of water to fill the pool up. Take that same amount of water to a smaller pool and that pool would be overflowing. Why swimming pools, your mass is mostly water!
The body mass of human beings change, unlike other animals, humans have choices of what to eat and what to do. According to most new sources our fellow humans seem to make the wrong choices. The Land of the Free in now The Land of The Fat! This is probably due to the convenience of American society mixed with a lack of exercise and infused with overindulgence of unhealthy foods. The heaviest man in the history of mankind was an American. Jon Browler of Washington weighed in at 442.3 kg eating a diet comparable to a grizzly bear's.
The world in general is getting more massive! America alone has a jaw dropping 60% obesity rate. Three in every five Americans have more body mass than they should have. This is becoming a larger than life problem. The lawsuits against food companies and treating obese people in the United States alone is costing a mind blowing 93 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! Wow looks like America just Super Sized it! From my personal experiences I noticed that there are less obese people in developing countries. While I stayed in my home countries in Africa and Latin America, most of the people I saw where at there ideal body mass. Maybe do to a lack of convenience and fast food. An obese person was not common. American is basically laughed at by most countries for the housing the unhealthiest people.
Having an ideal body mass is key to living a good long healthy life. Being obese makes you prone to diseases such as diabetes. Being too thin also has it's share of diseases. Most animals in the animal kingdom are almost all the same body mass for their species. I have never seen an obese wolf or an overly thin bear. It is because we have the choice, just make the right choice and take care of yourself.
Alex Schlessingerman -- 2003
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