American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 19, 422-435, Copyright © 1966 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

A Longitudinal Study of Gross Body Composition and Body Conformation and Their Association with Food and Activity in a Teen-Age Population

Anthropometric Evaluation of Body Build

¹ From the Division of Nutrition, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California

We evaluated one entire class in a public school system each year from the ninth through the twelfth grades anthropometrically. We found that the correlation between the anthropometric method of determining body composition and other methods was fairly good and that our procedure was practical for use within the schools.

Skeletal growth is apparent in boys and, contrary to popular conceptions, girls throughout the high school years, with that of the boys being more rapid. Boys and girls also showed an increase in muscle growth during this period. In boys body fat increased significantly only from the eleventh to the twelfth grades, and in girls body fat increased from the tenth to the eleventh grades and decreased from the eleventh to the twelfth grades. The increase in the girls might be a normal development and the subsequent decrease might be a result of voluntary weight reduction.

Significant differences in many measurements between teen-agers of different ethnic origin indicate that the same standards should not be applied to all races. Negro boys and girls tend to have a greater percentage of body fat than do Caucasian or Oriental boys and girls. Negro boys and girls have smaller bi-iliac and bitrochanteric to stature ratios than Oriental or Caucasian boys and girls. Caucasian boys and girls have smaller biacromial to stature ratios than do Oriental or Negro boys and girls. Oriental boys and girls tend to have larger diameter to stature ratios than do the other boys and girls. These differences in body conformation make it desirable to separate the ethnic groups when comparing typical anthropometric measurements that might characterize the lean or obese. The tendency for the "obese" group of girls to have larger diameter to stature ratios is more pronounced in Caucasian girls than it is in any other racial group of girls or in any racial group of boys.

Certain tendencies appear in the whole sample, however. "Obese" boys are taller than other boys, especially in the ninth grade. This difference tends to disappear by the twelfth grade. "Lean" girls tend to be taller than the other girls in the ninth through the twelfth grades. The bitrochanteric to stature ratio is the one index that is most likely to be larger for the "obese" groups for both sexes and three races. Although "obese" boys and girls tend to have broader bone structure in relation to height than do other groups, the predictive value of broad bone structure in anticipating future obesity seems to be fairly good for boys and poor for girls.

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