Understanding Normal Height Ranges: Percentiles & Statistics
QuestionWould a male being between 5th-8th percentile be normal for stature medically speaking. My understanding is that utilizing statistics the middle standard deviation which is basically the 20th percentile to 80th percentile is 'average' in the middle but only represents about 60 percent of the population. Therefore another standard deviation is added to account for 95% of the population total. In other words about 68 percent is 'average'...' with 13.5 percent 'short' and 13.5 percent 'tall' and this adds up to 95% which is the 'normal' population.. whereas the shortest and tallest 2.5 percent are outliers. Is this correct?
AnswerI am not sure where you came up with those numbers, but in general....the complete range covers 95% of "normal people" with 2 1/2 percent of highs and lows outside of that range on the chart. There isn't a way to subcategorize past that.... so 5-8 percentile is technically normal.