WonderQuest:  On the web since 1997...      

Women sizes:  British, USA, Canadian and Mexican, The age group with the best memory

Q: What is considered to be the average size woman in the UK? Someone, England

Photo courtesy of ilovebeeing.com

A: According to the Department for Trade and Industry, the average UK woman is 5' 3.8" (162 centimeters) tall and weighs 147 pounds (66.7 kilograms). This corresponds to a Body Mass Index of 25.2 kilograms/meters², which is slightly less than the average British man's, and less than the average American female's.

The average UK woman is tall enough for an astronaut (minimum height, 4' 10.5) but falls short of the average Miss Universe winner (5' 11) and is about the same height as the shortest king (Charles I, 5' 4).

By the way, the average UK male stands 5' 9.5 tall and weighs 176 pounds, with a Body Mass Index of 26.0 kg/m².

Q: Would you please update your 2002 average American woman size article?  What is the average size now?  Perhaps you could consider answering the question for North America? Laura, Toronto, Canada

Photo courtesy of ilovebeeing.com

A:  My Canadian cousin, George, would slaughter me for not including Canadians in the 'American' answer.  I really should include South and Central America, too, but you have kindly restricted it to North America.  That leaves only Mexico to go. 

USA:  The average American woman's weight  has increased 11 pounds (7 %) in the 10 years between the gathering of statistics, while her height has remained about the same.  Earlier I had reported a weight of 152 pounds (69 kg) and height 5' 3.7" (162 cm).  Now, it's 163 pounds (74 kg) and 5' 3.8" (162 cm).

Men have have also increased their weight by an average of 10 pounds (6 %), from 180 to 190 pounds, while remaining essentially the same height:  5' 9".

The USA results are from the National Center for Health Statistics, based on two studies:  NHANES III (1988 - 94) and, the most recent available, HANES (1999 - 2000). 

Canada:  The average Canadian woman's weight is 153 pounds (69.4 kg) and height is 5' 3.4" (161 cm).  Her male counterpart weighs  182 pounds (82.7 kg), and is 5' 8.5" (174 cm) tall.  Heather Orpana of Statistics Canada was kind to provide these statistics based on the 2005 Canadian Community Health Survey 3.1.

Mexico:  Military data (1956 for males and 1932 for females) height findings:  average Mexican males are 5' 5" (166 cm) tall and females are 5' 2" (150 cm) tall.  I was unable to find national weight averages.

The tables below summarize the information.

Update (Jan. 20, 2007):

Q: Why is the most recent data on the average weights of Americans so outdated, when Canada's information is current to 2005? Is the data available via a different location or is just not available to the public?  Ezell, San Antonio, Texas

A: The USA government schedules its comprehensive tests (HANES studies) about five years apart. 

I asked USA Public Affairs Specialist Mary Jones of the National Center for Disease Control when data from the next study will be available.  "It is in the collection stage; we don't have a release date as yet, maybe some time next year," she said.

The Canadians collect their data "every two years," says statistician Heather Orpana of Statistics Canada in Ottawa.  "We will have another survey in the field in 2007/2008, which will also be collecting measured height and weight data."

Further Reading:

Body measurements, National Center for Health Statistics

Statistics Canada

Average American female size, WonderQuest

An anthropometric approach to the measurement of living standards (Mexico) by Moramay López-Alonsa, Stanford University

The Question of the Month: readers contribute answers

This month's question:

Q:  What age group has the best memory?  (Earl, Rockledge, Florida)

Photo courtesy of Akkia and Wikipedia.

A:  The basic answer is middle age.  But, different kinds of memory abound —  from remembering when Kennedy was shot to remembering to remember your next dental appointment.  Perhaps the most useful memory is the one closely tied to thinking abilities.  It's called working memory, and allows us to focus on a task (like, paying attention to traffic) when distracted by irrelevant information coming in (a friend's conversation).  Having a good working memory is strongly related to complex thinking tasks, such as, comprehending what we read, solving problems or learning a new language.

The age at which our working memory peaks is 45, according to psychologist H. Lee Swanson of University of California, Riverside.   After examining 778 people, ranging in age from six to 76, he found working memory got better as children got older, reaching peak level at age 45, then steadily declining.  Moreover, the reason working memory declined is, "as we get older, we run out of places to put new information."  It's a storage problem, "not related to our reading or math abilities," Swanson says.

Moving on to another type of memory (semantic):  the ability to remember words, their meaning and general facts, such as, 'Paris is the capitol of France.'  Over a ten-year period, the Swedish based Betula Project looked at folks in ten age groups from 35 to 80 years old.  "The middle-aged adults [35 to 50] performed at the highest level," reported the project.  Even better, "no age-related deficits were observed before 75 years of age."  Indeed, how well we're educated appears to be a more important factor than our age in how well we can remember words and facts.

How about remembering to remember?  We retain the ability to remember such things as an upcoming appointment as age advances.  People from 61 to 70 years remembered such things as well as those from 18 to 30 years.  Such memory "started to decline only in those participants who were in their 70s," wrote psycholgist L. Kvavilashvili of the University of Herfordshire in England.

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,"  Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.

Further Reading:

What develops in working memory?  A life Span Perspective by H. Lee Swanson, University of California, Riverside

Semantic memory functioning across the adult life span, Betula Project

Mechanisms of Prospective Memory and Aging by Lia Kvavilashvili, University of Hertfordshire, England

Memory, Wikipedia

Readers' Answers (a monthly contribution by readers, published on the first Tuesday of the month):
 

• Older people have the best memory. As far as age groups go, I'd say 50 to 60.  But, I could be wrong.....I don't remember...

  James Turner, Americus, Georgia, USA
   

• What was the question again?

   Dave Martill (Age 50), Portsmouth, United Kingdom
   

• I believe 28 year olds have the best memory because my mom can remember stuff from when I was only 1 year old and I can't even remember stuff from a month ago! (I am 6 years old now).
  
  Kobie, Longmon, Colorado
   

• I think people in their 30s have the best memory.  I myself am only 14 and I do forget lot. My cousins, who are younger than me, forget a lot, and their parents often remind them to do something if they forget. My siblings are all older than me (20, 21 and 24). I notice they are often busy with work and school, and they get confused and forget. My father and mother are both about 50, and are often forgetting what time I finish school even though I have the same schedule every week. People in their 20s have so much going on they get lost sometimes. Teenagers are busy having a social life, and some are quite lazy, and forget to do homework. Kids have to be reminded by their parents, because they are playful and still learning. People in their 30s are more settled. This is what I have noticed in everyday life.

  Ledy e. x., Brooklyn, New York
   

Here's a graph showing who readers thought had the best memory.  Only one (shown in red) picked the correct age of about 45 years.  Most thought children are best.

(Answered Dec. 5, 2006)