Operating instructions

Human Physiological
Parameters
One of the most common complaints about the home
computer
is that it does not really do much for the
average consumer. After
you balance your checkbook,
then what? Here
is a program, based on scientific data
and studies, which calculates the proper weight for
an
individual as a function of height, body build, and sex.
Written
in Applesoft BASIC, it should be easily adapted
to any other reasonable BASIC.
Dr. L.S. Reich
3 Wessman Drive
West
Orange, NJ 07052
Introduction
The focus of public interest in nutri-
tion has changed markedly during the
past decade.
In the past, the emphasis
was on eating more of everything.
In-
creasingly, the message is to eat less.
The reason for the turnabout is that
many foods are believed
to be factors in
causing or promoting such degenerative
diseases as heart disease, diabetes, etc.
Diet is also involved in
an especially
prevalent disease, obesity (excessive
weight).
Excessive weight is associated with
cardiovascular and renal diseases,
diabetes, degenerative arthritis, gout,
etc.
On the basis of life insurance
statistics, the most nearly ideal weight
to maintain throughout life is that which
is proper at age
25 for one's height and
body build. Thus, height-weight tables
January, 1980
no longer indicate figures beyond ages
of 25-30 years. A deviation of not more
than
10 percent above or below the
desirable weight for a given individual is
not considered significant. The term
overweight is applied
to persons who are
10-20 percent above desirable weight;
obesity is applied
to persons about 20
percent or more overweight. Under-
weight generally applies
to those in-
dividuals who are more than
10 percent
below the established standards. Those
who are more than
20 percent below
such standards are considered
to be
seriously underweight.
Height-weight tables provide only
approximations on the degree of
fatness. More accurate measures of
body fatness include measurements of
thickness of subcutaneous tissue at
designated body locations using
calipers or by determination of body
density by means of underwater
MICRO -- The 6502 Journal
weighing. If has been estimated that
about one-half
of all men over 30 are at
least
10 percent overweight and that
one-quarter are obese. The incidence is
higher for women, about
40 percent be-
ing obese by the age of 40.
Generally, the percent water in lean
individuals is higher than in obese per-
sons. The opposite is true in regard
to
body fat. The human body generally con-
sists
of 55-60 percent of body weight as
water, about
17 percent as lipids (which
includes fats), about
15 percent as pro-
tein, and about
1 percent as carbohy-
drates,
about 5 percent of other
materials. The total body water relative
to body weight is usually lower in
females than in males. Also, the
predicted total body water has been
found to
be closely related to pJedicted
surface area. Generally, the higher the
weight·%
of body water, the lower the
weight·% of body fat.
20:15