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I'm trying to find the ratio of upper body to lower body. That is, the ratio of the length of the waist to the head over the length of the waist to the floor.

It's been harder to track down a readable outline of the ratios of the human body than I expected.

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    $\begingroup$ Since I can't comment, I'll answer using the answer above - given the image shown, the 0.52/0.485 ratio is comparing the top of the head to the inseam relative to the inseam to the floor. Notice that the image given shows the waist at between 0.53 (the practical waist that most of us use when we wear clothing) to 0.630 (the anatomical waist, the narrowest point on the torso above the hips). That's actually the only number you need - subtract that from 1 and you have the other number. In short: above waist ~= 0.37 of total height, 0.63 below waist. The previous answer gave a reasonable image, b $\endgroup$
    – TPStacker
    Apr 8, 2020 at 2:33
  • $\begingroup$ @TPStacker: Simple observation would suggest that there is no such ratio. Some people have long legs compared to their torso, other people have short legs. That would seem to be true of other body proportions as well. $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Apr 8, 2020 at 16:31

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The study of those measures is called anthropometry. Typing anthropometry on google image returned this

enter image description here

This is definitely not a peer-review source and might eventually be a good approximation only for white males (or whoever they considered to take these measurements on) but if we believe this image, then the ratio head-to-waist over waist-to-floor is $\frac{0.52}{0.485} = 1.072$.

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    $\begingroup$ Perfect! And thanks for the additional comments on likely assumptions and approximations. And for the help with the correct term to look for. $\endgroup$
    – davidparks21
    Jul 20, 2017 at 17:13

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