J’Clin E$dehiol Vol. 45, No. 7, p. 807, 1992 Printed in Great Britain
0895-4356/92 $5.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Ltd
Letter to the Editors BODY MASS AND BREAST CANCER
The paper by Chu et al. on the relationship between body mass and breast cancer (J Clin Epidemiol 199 1; 44: 1197-l 206) needs a critical note not only because of the omission of older references from the literature, but also, I challenge their definition of body mass. In an earlier letter to the editor (J Chron Dis 1978; 3 1: 129) I have already pointed out that the expression: Body Mass Index (BMI) when quantifying overweight is wrong; the correct expression is Quetelet Index.
The confusion leads to the following first sentence of the abstract of the Chu paper which reads: “. . . between body mass [weight (kg)/height (m)‘] and . . .” I am sure you do not agree with this definition. F. DE WAARD Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht Afdeling Epidemiologie Radboudkwartier 261-263 3511 CK Utrecht The Netherlandr
Response
The following definition for body mass index listed in The Dictionary of Epidemiology is [l]:
and related indices derived from height and weight (particularly weight divided by height2also known as body mass index or Quetelet’s index) have been demonstrated to correlate highly with weight and to be nearly independent of height.” We feel that the use of body mass index in our paper is accepted and acceptable.
“Body Mass Index: (Syn: Quetelet’s index) One of the anthropometric measures of body mass. Defined as (weight)/(height)2. This measure has the highest correlation with skinfold thickness or body density and in this respect is superior to the ponderal index.”
SUSAN Y. CHU
In addition, in the U.S. Public Health Service publication “Anthropometric Reference Data and Prevalence of Overweight, United States: Data from the Health Examination Survey” [2]: “Overweight was defined in terms of the body mass index (BMI), which was determined by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared.”
Surveillance Branch Division of HIV/AIDS Centers for Disease Control Atlanta, GA 30333 U.S.A.
REFERENCES Last JM, Pd. The Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press; 1988: 18. National Center for Health Statistics, Najjar MF, Rowland M. Vital and Health Statistics. Series 11, No. 238. DHHS Publ. No. (PHS) 87-1688. Public Health Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987. Manson JE, Stampfer MJ, Hennekens CH, Willett WC. Body weight and longevity. JAMA 1987; 257: 353-358.
Other investigators have used this definition as well, for example, in an extensive review paper published from the Channing Laboratory of Harvard University on body weight and longevity [33, the authors state, “relative weight 807
0895-4356/92 $5.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press Ltd
Letter to the Editors BODY MASS AND BREAST CANCER
The paper by Chu et al. on the relationship between body mass and breast cancer (J Clin Epidemiol 199 1; 44: 1197-l 206) needs a critical note not only because of the omission of older references from the literature, but also, I challenge their definition of body mass. In an earlier letter to the editor (J Chron Dis 1978; 3 1: 129) I have already pointed out that the expression: Body Mass Index (BMI) when quantifying overweight is wrong; the correct expression is Quetelet Index.
The confusion leads to the following first sentence of the abstract of the Chu paper which reads: “. . . between body mass [weight (kg)/height (m)‘] and . . .” I am sure you do not agree with this definition. F. DE WAARD Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht Afdeling Epidemiologie Radboudkwartier 261-263 3511 CK Utrecht The Netherlandr
Response
The following definition for body mass index listed in The Dictionary of Epidemiology is [l]:
and related indices derived from height and weight (particularly weight divided by height2also known as body mass index or Quetelet’s index) have been demonstrated to correlate highly with weight and to be nearly independent of height.” We feel that the use of body mass index in our paper is accepted and acceptable.
“Body Mass Index: (Syn: Quetelet’s index) One of the anthropometric measures of body mass. Defined as (weight)/(height)2. This measure has the highest correlation with skinfold thickness or body density and in this respect is superior to the ponderal index.”
SUSAN Y. CHU
In addition, in the U.S. Public Health Service publication “Anthropometric Reference Data and Prevalence of Overweight, United States: Data from the Health Examination Survey” [2]: “Overweight was defined in terms of the body mass index (BMI), which was determined by dividing weight in kilograms by height in meters squared.”
Surveillance Branch Division of HIV/AIDS Centers for Disease Control Atlanta, GA 30333 U.S.A.
REFERENCES Last JM, Pd. The Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press; 1988: 18. National Center for Health Statistics, Najjar MF, Rowland M. Vital and Health Statistics. Series 11, No. 238. DHHS Publ. No. (PHS) 87-1688. Public Health Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987. Manson JE, Stampfer MJ, Hennekens CH, Willett WC. Body weight and longevity. JAMA 1987; 257: 353-358.
Other investigators have used this definition as well, for example, in an extensive review paper published from the Channing Laboratory of Harvard University on body weight and longevity [33, the authors state, “relative weight 807
