Whether for health reasons or simply for appearance, many people today regularly monitor changes in their weight. The reference index recommended by the WHO for assessing whether an individual's weight is appropriate for their height grew out of the research of the Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet, a scholar who greatly influenced the development of science in Europe during the 19th century (see box).
This index is defined as weight divided by the square of height: BMI = p / t2, where p denotes the person's weight in kilograms and t their height in metres. It is known as the Quetelet index, or the body mass index (BMI for short).
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Origins of an index
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