ABSTRACT
Life insurance companies took an early interest in the height and weight of their applicants because they believed the figures were an important indicator of health and a factor in the acceptance or denial of an applicant’s petition for insurance. In 1895, Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors of America (ALIMDA) assigned George R. Shepherd, medical director of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, to chair a committee to create a reliable standard height and weight table. Shepherd presented the final product at the ALIMDA annual meeting in 1897. MetLife’s 1942 height and weight standardized table for women relied on data from life insurance policies held between 1922 and 1934. In the 1959 Society of Actuaries’ Build and Blood Pressure Study, several large northeastern insurance companies contributed more than half of the data, skewing the findings geographically and therefore population-wise. Insurance companies, statisticians, and actuaries could not have created a fear of fat without the support of the medical community.
