They were participating in a national survey of peoples sizes and, would I mind being measured? As I was already naked and "a regular", I agreed.
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Malesmoothy,
I've never been measured that minutely as you describe, though as a fantasy it is something i would willingly participate in.
That aside, what you describe sounds familiar from articles I've read on what are sometimes called the 'posture photos'. Apparently before and after WWII, there was a body of scientific thought that held that one could predict and deduce much about a person's character and physical make-up, by garnering a large number of physical measurements of an individual and then computing the results and placing these into several soma-types or categories of people.
Apparently it was common in some colleges and universities to take nude photos of students and use these for nation-wide studies. Measurements were also taken if one wanted more detailed results.
This last was probably a holdover from pre Great War study methods that were used in comparative anthropological studies of various ethnicities around the world, back when many European countries had colonies peopled with what were then, exotic and fascinating local inhabitants. Scientists would often compose detailed studies of body measurements, make drawings and schematics of these and publish these. The progression going from indigenous non-Europeans in the colonies to western European body types. Publications of such studies and drawings were very common in Germany before and after the Great War. and were often sold to the 'higher' occupations, such as doctors, lawyers and such.
Here is a quote from a website on these types of studies. It gives a bit more explanation:
"The reigning school of the time, presided over by E. A. Hooton of Harvard and W. H. Sheldon" - who directed an institute for physique studies at Columbia University - "held that a person's body, measured and analyzed, could tell much about intelligence, temperament, moral worth and probable future achievement. The inspiration came from the founder of social Darwinism, Francis Galton, who proposed such a photo archive for the British population."
While the popular conception of Sheldonism has it that he divided human beings into three types - skinny, nervous "ectomorphs"; fat and jolly "endomorphs"; confident, buffed "mesomorphs" - what he actually did was somewhat more complex. He believed that every individual harbored within him different degrees of each of the three character components. By using body measurements and ratios derived from nude photographs, Sheldon believed he could assign every individual a three-digit number representing the three components, components that Sheldon believed were inborn - genetic - and remained unwavering determinants of character regardless of transitory weight change. In other words, physique equals destiny.
It sounds like you were measured in a manner reminiscent of the above. Maybe your detailed measuring was conducted as part of a scientific study, probably on a far smaller scale, though it also sounds like something a member here would do during a play exam.