Body Surface Area Chart
The medical community has a formula for body surface area!
By Rob Cockerham |
About ten years ago, in the New York City studios of MTV, my sister Jane and I tried to calculate the surface area of Dave Grohl, guitarist for the Foo Fighters.
We wrapped him in a tight skin of aluminum foil, then unwrapped it and measured the area of the flat foil.
Our measurements yielded a result of 1.5 square meters.
Last month, my fried Ali told me about a common formula for calculating the surface area of a person's body. Take height (cm) x weight (kg) / 3600, and the BSA is the square root of this number. Ali is a nurse, and she actually has to do this calculation when she is preparing doses for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
I was immediately interested, because I've been steeped in height and weight numbers for years now, trying to complete my photographic height weight chart. Like the BMI chart, this was a calculation I could add to any body size on the chart!
So I did. If you look at the height weight chart today, you should see a calculation for the body surface area for any height and weight represented. The surface areas for adult humans range from 1.3 square meters (4'10" and 90 lbs.) to 3 square meters (6'3" and 370 lbs.), and everything in between.
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4' 10" 90 lbs. | |
Body Surface Area | ![]() |
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4' 11" 110 lbs. | ||
5' 1" 100 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 0" 120 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 6" 110 lbs. | |||
5' 8" 100 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 0" 140 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 3" 130 lbs. | |||
5' 8" 120 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 0" 150 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 5" 140 lbs. | |||
5' 10" 130 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 1" 170 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 7" 150 lbs. | |||
6' 0" 140 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 3" 180 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 6" 170 lbs. | |||
5' 10" 160 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 2" 200 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 5" 190 lbs. | |||
5' 9" 180 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 0" 230 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 6" 210 lbs. | |||
6' 0" 190 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 3" 240 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 9" 220 lbs. | |||
6' 0" 210 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 5" 250 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 9" 240 lbs. | |||
6' 0" 230 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 6" 270 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 9" 260 lbs. | |||
6' 2" 240 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 7" 290 lbs. | ![]() |
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6' 0" 270 lbs. | |||
6' 3" 260 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 8" 310 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 10" 300 lbs. | |||
6' 2" 280 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 8" 330 lbs. | ![]() |
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5' 11" 320 lbs. | |||
6' 3" 300 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 5' 11" 340 lbs. | ![]() |
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6' 2" 330 lbs. | |||
6' 6quot; 310 lbs. |
Body Surface Area | 6' 1" 360 lbs. | ![]() |
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6' 2" 350 lbs. | |||
6' 5" 340 lbs. |
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6' 3" 370 lbs. | ||
6' 5" 360 lbs. |
Body surface area doesn't indicate the body type of an individual. A very tall thin man can have the same BSA as a short round woman. BSA is a better indicator of metabolic mass than body weight since it is less affected by abnormal body fat.