Power-like Tail Observed in Weight Distributions of Schoolchildren

Abstract

We investigated the statistical properties of the weight distributions of Japanese children who were born in 1996, from recent data. The weights of 16- and 17-year-old male children have a lognormal distribution with a power-like tail, which is best modeled by the double Pareto distribution. The emergence of the power-like tail may be attributed to the low probability that an obese person will attain a normal weight.