Sex, Age, Height, and Weight as Predictors of Selected Physiologic Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which sex, age, height, and weight predict selected physiologic outcomes, namely, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV₁), hemoglobin concentration, food intake, serum glucose concentration, total serum cholesterol concentration, and cancer-related weight change. Secondary analysis was performed on four datasets with sample sizes ranging from 60 to 8,489. FEV₁ (R² = .56), hemoglobin (R² = .40), food intake (R² = .25), glucose (R² = .24), cholesterol (R² = .21 and .15), and cancer-related weight change (R² = .16 and .06) were predictable to varying extents. Moreover, the use of sex, age, height, and weight as covariates and in sample size determination was shown to be relevant when testing the effects of interventions or other variables on these physiologic outcomes.