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.
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.
