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Whereas it is customary for patients seen in ambulatory care settings to have their weights measured, heights are usually taken from the patient's recollection. To see if this practice may result in incorrect estimates of body mass index for people with diabetes, 100 consecutive adult outpatients newly referred for consultation regarding diabetes (32 patients with type 1 diabetes and 68 patients with type 2 diabetes; 47 women and 53 men) were asked what they believed their height to be, then had their height and weight measured.
Only 18 of the 100 patients correctly estimated their height within 0.5 inch of its measured value. Of the remaining 82 patients, 76 overestimated their height by more than 0.5 inch (including 14 who overestimated their height by 2 inches, 5 by 2.5 inches, 4 by 3 inches and 1 by 4 inches). Only 6 patients underestimated their height by more than 0.5 inch.
When measured rather than recollected heights were used, 4 patients moved from the normal range of the body mass index (18.5–24.9 kg/m2) into the overweight range (25.0–29.9 kg/m2), 11 patients moved from the overweight range into the obese class I range (30.0–34.9 kg/m2) and 6 patients moved from the obese class I range into the obese class II range (>35.0 kg/m2). In contrast, 2 patients were reclassified as being in the normal range rather than the overweight range and 1 patient was reclassified as being in the obese class I range rather than the obese class II range.
The patient's type of diabetes was not a predictor of their ability to accurately estimate their height, nor was their age. (The mean age of patients estimating their height within 1 inch of its measured value was 48 years; the mean age of those estimating their height to be more than 1 inch greater or less than its measured value was 50 years). Women, however, were more likely to accurately estimate their height (35 of 47 women v. 24 of 53 men estimated their height within 1 inch of its measured value, p = 0.003).
Aspirations for greater stature in life are clearly more than just figurative.
Footnotes
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Author's note: Subsequent to the completion of this study I measured my own height. This was 5 feet, 8.5 inches, which is exactly 1 inch shorter than I had thought.