Body mass, wealth, and inequality in the 19th century: joining the debate surrounding equality and health.

ABSTRACT

We explore relationships among BMI variation, wealth, and inequality in the 19th century US. There was an inverse relationship between BMI and average state-level wealth and a small, inverse relationship with wealth inequality. After controlling for wealth and inequality, farmers had greater BMI values than workers in other occupations, and blacks had greater BMI values because of nutritional deprivation in utero.