David Damerell wrote:
Quoting Llatikcuf :

If you refer to the simple geometric principle that volume is
proportional to height^3, then you'll see that 6'8" and 300 lbs is
equivalent to 6'0" and 219 lbs., or 5'6" and 168 lbs. That's normal
for fit men of heavy build at those heights.

that's not how I remember health class-

[BMI]

Indeed, it is obvious that BMI is bogus for people of unusual height
precisely because it does not take account of the square-cube law.

We've been over this before. BMI works for me (6'10"/230lb), so does the
max HR formula. As unusual as I am statistically, I'm only 17% or so
taller than the average male of European descent, probably less than
that for my ancestral gene pool (Dutch). As far as I know, I'm to scale,
in that all my parts, including eyes (opthalmologist says) and teeth/jaw
(dentist says) are just that much bigger. I'm no "bean pole", nobody
ever called me skinny, I'd say I have an average build/frame, just
scaled up a bit. For my average build, the BMI seems to scale well,
perhaps not perfectly, as my body fat is low-ish and the BMI has me at
the high end of normal/recommended. 17% isn't a huge difference
geometrically (although it seems huge to most people appearance-wise).
Another non-linearity is density -- bones get bigger/heavier as they get
longer, though I'm not sure exactly how much. It's interesting to see
such physically different cyclists as Pantani/Hamilton vs.
Hincapie/Indurain compete over the same courses. It seems there may be a
disadvantage to being too big or too small when it comes to endurance
athletics.

There is a wide variation in build/body types. I guess the old
endo/ecto/meso-morph type model is no longer used, but I've seen a few
attempts to adjust the BMI for categories of body type.

More importantly, there was just a study that linked large skull size to
high intelligence. This pleases me because I can never find a hat big
enough either.