The Corpulence Index (CI) (also Ponderal Index (PI) or Rohrer's Index) is a measure of corpulence, or of leanness in other variants, of a person''Foods and Nutrition Encyclopedia'', Audrey H. Ensminger, Marion Eugene Ensminger. p. 1645 calculated as a relationship between mass and height.EXSS 323: LAB 1 - BIOMECHANICS TOOLS: Computers, Algebra and Trig
Oregon State University It was first proposed in 1921 as the "Corpulence measure" by Swiss physician Fritz Rohrer and hence is also known as Rohrer's Index. It is similar to the

body mass index Body mass index (BMI) is a value derived from the mass (Mass versus weight, weight) and height of a person. The BMI is defined as the human body weight, body mass divided by the square (algebra), square of the human height, body height, and is ...

, but the mass is normalized with the third power of body height rather than the second power. In 2015, Sultan Babar showed that CI does not need to be adjusted for height after adolescence. Babar also tested the corpulence index against the BMI as a method of predicting body fat content in the NHANES III study, which calculated

body fat percentage The body fat percentage of an organism is the total mass of its fat divided by its total body mass, multiplied by 100; body fat includes essential body fat and storage body fat. Essential body fat is necessary to maintain life and reproductive fu ...

based on bioelectrical impedance analysis. The corpulence index performed somewhat better than the BMI in terms of sensitivity, specificity, and predictive value. It also out-performed the Lorentz index and Broca's estimate of ideal body mass. :

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with

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in kilograms and

\mathrm

in metres, giving a measure with the same dimensions as

density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...

. The corpulence index yields valid results even for very short and very tall persons, which is a problem with BMI — for example, an ideal body weight for a person 152.4 cm tall (48 kg) will render BMI of 20.7 and CI of 13.6, while for a person 200 cm tall (99 kg), the BMI will be 24.8, very close to the "overweight" threshold of 25, while CI will be 12.4. Because of this property, it is most commonly used in

pediatrics Pediatrics (American English) also spelled paediatrics (British English), is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, Adolescence, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, pediatrics covers many o ...

.ACC/SCN NUTRITION POLICY PAPER No. 19 - Glossary
by Lindsay H. Allen and Stuart R. Gillespie (For a baby, one can take crown-heel length for the height.) The normal values for infants are about twice as high as for adults, which is the result of their relatively short legs. It does not need to be adjusted for age after adolescence. It has also been shown to have a lower false positive rate in athletes. The corpulence index is variously defined (the first definition should be preferred due to the use of SI-units kg and m) as follows:

Significance

* It plays a role in assessing whether the intrauterine growth restriction of a child is symmetrical or asymmetrical. * CI has been shown to have higher sensitivity, specificity, and

positive and negative predictive values The positive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV respectively) are the proportions of positive and negative results in statistics and diagnostic tests that are true positive and true negative results, respectively. The PPV and NPV des ...

than

for determining adiposity. * It is used to calculate ''ectomorphy'' in the Heath–Carter formula.

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Significance

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