Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Clinical Anthropometrics and Body Composition from 3-Dimensional Optical Imaging
Published on: June 7, 2024
Visual estimation of patients' body weight in hospital: the more observers, the better?
Sylvain Goutelle1,2,3, Laurent Bourguignon4,5,6, Nathalie Bertrand-Passeron4,7
1Hospices Civils de Lyon, Hôpital Antoine Charial, ADCAPT - Service Pharmaceutique, 40 Avenue de la Table de Pierre, 69340, Francheville, France. sylvain.goutelle@chu-lyon.fr.
Objective:
Patients are not always weighed in hospitals. A visual estimate of patients' body weight is often used. Little information exists about the validity of this practice. We assessed the visual estimation of body weight in a population of elderly hospitalised patients.
Method:
Three observers performed a visual estimation of weight in 71 geriatric patients. Estimated body weights from each observer were compared to measured body weights. Various panels--three panels of two observers and two panels of three observers--were also evaluated.
Results:
Overall results showed that a three observer panel gave better weight estimates than one or two individuals.
Conclusion:
While further clinical studies are necessary to confirm these findings, using the mean or the median of several visual estimates may be a practical solution for body weight estimation when weighing patients is not possible.
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