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Demographic and Health Survey 1997 - IPUMS Subset

Madagascar, 1997
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Reference ID
MDG_1997_DHS_v01_M_v02_A_IPUMS
Producer(s)
Direction de la Démographie et des Statistiques Sociales, Institut National de la Statistique [Madagascar] and Macro International Inc., Minnesota Population Center
Collection(s)
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)
Metadata
Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Aug 15, 2018
Last modified
May 14, 2020
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20386

Body Mass Index (BMI) for respondents to the women's survey (C_BIOFBMI)

Data file: MDG1997-C.dat

Overview

Type: Discrete
Decimal: 0
Start: 865
End: 868
Width: 4
Range: -
Format: Numeric

Questions and instructions

Literal question
1008. WEIGHT (IN KILOGRAMS)

KG ____
Categories
Value Category
9995 Flagged cases
9998 Missing
9999 NIU (not in universe)
Warning: these figures indicate the number of cases found in the data file. They cannot be interpreted as summary statistics of the population of interest.

Description

Definition
BIOFBMI (V445) reports the female respondent's body mass index (BMI). BMI is an anthropometric measure relating weight to height, equal to body weight (kilograms) divided by height (meters) squared (W/(H^2)). Also known as the Quetelet Index, BMI is a measure of acute nutritional status, based on the Fogarty Metropolitan Life tables of ideal weight for height.

The DHS Guide to Statistics offers the following guidelines for interpreting BMI scores for women age 15-49:

Severely thin: less than 16.0
Moderately thin: 16.0 to 16.9
Mildly thin: 17.0 to 18.4
Normal: 18.5 to 24.9
Overweight: 25.0 to 29.9
Obese: 30.0 or more

The original height and weight values used to calculate BMI are also included in IPUMS-DHS. WEIGHTFEM (V437) reports the respondent's weight in kilograms, as measured by DHS personnel; HEIGHTFEM (V438) reports the person's length or height in centimeters, as measured by DHS personnel.

For an alternate measure of female nutrition, IPUMS-DHS users may also be interested in BIOFROHRER (V446), which reports the respondent's Rohrer's Index. This measure is equal to body weight (kilograms) divided by height (meters) cubed (W/(H^3)).

concept

Concept
var_concept.title Vocabulary
Female anthropometry Variables -- TOPICS IPUMS
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