Mathematics SL Portfolio Type 2 Body Mass Index

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The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a heuristic proxy for human body fat based on an individual's weight and height. BMI does not actually measure the percentage of body fat. It was invented between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the

course of developing "social physics". Body mass index is defined as the individual's body weight divided by the square of his or her height. The formulae universally used in medicine produce a unit of measure of kg/m2. BMI can also be determined using a BMI chart, which displays BMI as a function of weight (horizontal axis) and height (vertical axis) using contour lines for different values of BMI or colors for different BMI categories.

Consider the median BMI for females of different ages in the US in the year 2000. Age (yrs) BMI

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

16.40 15.70 15.30 15.20 15.21 15.40 15.80 16.30 16.80 17.50 18.18 18.70 19.36 19.88 20.40 20.85 21.22 21.60 21.65

The above set of data points is plotted on the graph using Autograh software. To plot the data, the parameters defined are:

x-axis denotes the age x years and y-axis denotes the median BMI which is taken as y. x is the independent variable and y is the dependent variable. x takes the values from 0 to 50, i.e., 0 < x < 50. y takes the values from 0 to 30, i.e., 0 < y < 30. Since both the variables are positive, the graph will be reflected in the first quadrant only.

From the graph we observe that the trend of the graph looks like that of a polynomial function (cubic polynomial) or a periodic function. To find the more accurate function we insert the data points in the calculator and check the regression which is called as the coefficient of determination i.e., r2 value.
R-Squared (r ) is a statistical term saying how good one term is at predicting another. If R-Squared is 1.0 then given the value of one term, you can perfectly predict the value of another term. If R-Squared is 0.0, then knowing one term doesn't not help you know the other term at all. More generally, a higher value of R-Squared means that you can better predict one term from another.
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The Graphic Display Calculator (GDC) is used to find the more appropriate model.

According to the cubic regression, the model is given by:

According to the sine regression, the model is given by:

To find the best model, we plot both the regression on the same axes and compare the models.

Looking at both the models, we can say that the cubic model (blue curve) best fits the data as compared to the sine model (red curve). Also since the r2 value of the cubic model is approximately
1, hence we choose the cubic model as the better model.

We now check if there is any better polynomial function which is fitting the data more perfectly. We again use the GDC to find the model. Let us consider the polynomials with degree more than 3. Degree 4: