From chemical analysis of the body...to metabolic insights provided by the new methodology

Abstract

It is by no means an exaggeration to say that Dr Widdowson is one of the pioneers of body composition research and her studies in the 1940s and 1950s have laid the foundations of body composition science today. These have included both animal and human studies, although this paper will focus only on the latter. Together with Professor McCance and Christine Spray she was responsible for the analysis of three entire adult human cadavers and that of a 4-year-old child (Widdowson et al. 1951). Further work with Dr Dickerson explored the composition of specific tissues and organs of the body (Widdowson & Dickerson, 1964). These studies provide some of the best direct data on human body composition. Moreover the findings from this work form the basis of the indirect techniques which are used so widely today.