These are among the many findings of the two-year study undertaken by officials of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI). This body size profile of the country is now being used by automotive companies to make cars that would suit Indian physique and sizes.

“We recently started licencing this data to the companies and have so far given it to four automotive companies for designing their vehicles for better driving,” said ARAI senior deputy director D J Kulkarni.

The ARAI study puts the mean standing height of Indian male at 167.3 cm. Compared with the other countries, the height is much less. The male height of North America, Italy and Germany is 177.7 cm, 173.6 cm and 177.1 cm respectively while the Dutch male height is 181.3 cm. The study also found that while the average height recorded was 167.3 cm, the highest and the lowest height among the males varied between 178.7 cm and 156.3 cm.

The average height of female population was 156.2 cm while the maximum and minimum height was 166.4 cm and 145.5 cm respectively. The average sitting height of male and female was found to be 86 cm and 80.8 cm, and weight has been put at 63.9 and 55.1 kg respectively.

“Our data has shown that the younger population is taller than those in the older and middle age group. Besides height, we worked out other data of the body size,” said C V Ghaisas, assistant director, Passive Safety Lab ARAI.

Engineering and technical staff of ARAI with the help of 3D body scanners collected the data for 100 dimensions of the body which consisted of 73 measurements of body, 20 detailed dimensions of palm, 5 of foot and 3 of the footwear. The body scan data is covering the age groups in the range of 18-29 years, 29-44 and 45 years and above.