American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 3, 403-408, Copyright © 1955 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Some Relations Between Body Weight, Body Fat, and Calorie Intake

¹ From the U. S. Army Medical Nutrition Laboratory, Denver

During the course of a field experiment in which 87 soldiers served as test subjects, the following observations were made:

1. The correlation between body weight and calorie intake, although statistically significant, was low.

2. When calorie intake was related to per cent body fat independent of body weight, an inverse relationship was revealed, i.e., calorie intake decreased as per cent body fat increased.

3. During two one-week periods the relation between per cent body fat and per cent of calories derived from fat was examined. In one instance a significant positive correlation was found. In the other instance the correlation was not significant.

4. The loss of body weight during a period of calorie restriction at a fixed level was found to be significantly correlated with initial body weight but not with initial body fatness.

5. Nitrogen excretion in the urine early during the period of calorie restriction was significantly positively correlated with body weight and significantly negatively correlated with per cent body fat. At a later time during calorie restriction nitrogen excretion was correlated with body weight but not with body fatness.