Elbow breadth as a measure of frame size for US males and females.

Correlation coefficients of weight, bitrochanteric and elbow breadth to the log-transformed skinfold thickness and age were calculated using 16,494 adult Black and white samples derived from the data sets of the US Health and Nutritional Examination Survey I of 1971 to 1974. Among the variables, elbow breadth exhibited the lowest correlation with skinfold thickness and changes little with age. The analysis shows that elbow breadth can be used as an indicator of frame size. Based on sex-, race-, and age-specific percentiles of elbow breadth the subjects were classified into categories of small, medium, and large frame size. It is suggested that these categories be used for the evaluation of weight for height and frame size.