What is the  aprox. weight in pounds/ounces, of the human head of a
child - age: between 8 and 16 years?
I need the souce -it's for a book im writing.

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Request for Question Clarification by journalist-ga on 10 Sep 2003 21:05 PDT

Hi, just wondering if my comments were on any assistance.

Best regards,
journalist-ga

Greetings 5861:

I have found some references to your query but am hesitant to post
them as an answer so I'll offer them here as comments.  If they are
helpful, I hope you'll let me know.

"A human cadaver head cut off around vertebra C3, with no hair, weighs
somewhere between 4.5 [9.9208018 pounds according to the Google
calculator conversion] and 5 kg [11.0231131 pounds], constituting
around 8% of the whole body mass."
From http://danny.oz.au/anthropology/notes/human-head-weight.html

"In the New Scientist on Thursday, there was a question about weighing
your own head... [by displacing water in a bucket] They calculated,
over 3 very cold and disturbing experiments, that the weight of a
human head is 4.25kg [9.36964614 pounds]."
From http://www.galactic-cowboy.co.uk/skooldaze/archives/2002_11.html

"The average weight of the human head is 8-12 pounds while the average
weight of the helmet used in our sample is 2.7 pounds."
From http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/goldstein/footnotes.html


If this is for a novel, then you might want to consider whether the
head is freshly cut off or partially or fully dried since that would
figure in the weight.  Also, you may want to contact the University of
Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center also known as the "Body Farm"
as they do cadaver experiments and might know the weights you seek.

Forensic Anthropology Center, UT Knoxville
http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/FACresources.html

I wasn't sure if you wanted approximate head weight for each age of a
child (8, 9, 10, 11 etc - separately) but probably for age 13+, head
weight should be fully developed so the 8% rule should apply in those
weights.  For a younger child, the head is sometimes a larger
percentage but it would depend on whether the child is overweight or
slender in applying the 8% of body rule.

For future references in other medical areas, you may find the medical
algorithms at http://www.medal.org/ch2.html of interest.

Best regards,
journalist-ga


SEARCH STRATEGY:

"weight of a human head"
"weight of the human head"
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head to body weight ratio

Just FYI: I'm sure that convincing phraseology and accuracy are
important for the sake of your novel so I thought it useful to note
that in all the US conducted autopsies I have been associated with the
medical examiners used metric weight measurements in their reports.
This may not be the case in every instance, but I personally have
never seen it done any other way.

Regards;
tutuzdad-ga