Biology,Complexion, and Socioeconomic Status: Accounting for Nineteenth Century Body Mass Index by Race

Nineteenth‐century US whites were taller than their mulatto and darker complexioned African‐American counterparts, a pattern known as the ‘Mulatto Advantage’. If this pattern was due to social preferences, fairer complexioned whites would have had greater body mass index (BMIs) values. This study shows that late nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century US BMIs differed by race, and darker complexions were associated with greater BMI values. Mulattos had greater BMI returns associated with socioeconomic characteristics, indicating that while blacks had greater BMIs than fairer complexioned whites and mulattos, part of the difference was offset by socioeconomic characteristics that favoured fairer complexions.