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BACKGROUND: Under normal nutritional and health conditions, body height, weight and head circumference are significantly related. We hypothesize that the apparent general association between weight, height, and head circumference of the growing child might be misleading. METHODS: We reanalyzed data of 7,444 boys and 7,375 girls measured in East-Germany between 1986 and 1990, aged from 0 to 7 y with measurements of body length/height, leg length, sitting height, biacromial shoulder breadth, thoracic breadth, thoracic depth, thoracic circumference, body weight, head volume, percentage of body fat, and hip skinfold vertical, using principal component analysis. RESULTS: Strong associations exist between skeletal growth, fat accumulation, and head volume increments. Yet in spite of this general proportionality, skeletal growth, fat acquisition, and head growth exhibit different patterns. Three components explain between almost 60% and more than 75% of cumulative variance between birth and age 7 y. Parameters of skeletal growth predominantly load on the first component and clearly separate from indicators of fat deposition. After age of 2 y, head volume loads on a separate third component in both sexes indicating independence of head growth. CONCLUSION: Under appropriate nutritional and health circumstances, nutritional status, body size, and head circumference are not related.
Aim: Poverty has often been associated with malnutrition, stunted growth, impaired cognitive development and poor earnings. We studied whether these associations were found in German men born and raised shortly after World War II during severe and long-standing nationwide malnutrition. Methods: We analysed German old-age pension payments, as a rough measure of lifetime earnings, in German men born from 1932 to 1960 and compared the at-risk-of-poverty rates of German men born in 1945-1948 versus 1935-1938 and 1955-1958. Results: Substantially fewer women worked during this period and their longer life expectancy makes their pension payments difficult to interpret. We therefore limited our analysis to men. Men born in the 1930s received the highest monthly old-age pensions and these declined slightly in men born from 1945 to 1948, indicating a minute impairment in work-related income in cohorts born shortly after the war. We also found that there was no evidence for increased at-risk-of-poverty rates in men born in 1945-1948 versus those born in 1935-1938 and in 1955-1958. Conclusion: Being born and raised following World War II was associated with a minute work and pension impairment that was not visible in the at-risk-of-poverty rates. These findings question statements associating early childhood nutrition and future lifetime earnings.
Anthropologists all over the world are discussing influences on individual height including quantity and quality of nutrition. To examine whether a relationship between nutritional components and height can be found this pilot study has been developed. The research samples consisted of 44 children (age 3–6 years) attending two different kindergartens in Germany. Height measurements were taken for each child. Furthermore the parents had to fill out a 24-hour questionnaire to document their children’s eating habits during the weekend. In order to standardize the measured height values z-scores were calculated with reference to the average height of the overall cohort. The results of correlation analysis indicate that height is not significantly related to any of the main nutritional components as protein (r = –0.148), carbohydrates (r = 0.126), fat (r = 0.107), fibre (r = –0.289), vitamin (r = 0.050), calcium (r = 0.110), potassium (r = 0.189) and overall calorie intake (r = 0.302). In conclusion, it can be stated that the quality of nutrition may not have a strong influence on individual height. However, due to the small sample size further research should be provided with a larger cohort of children to verify the present results.
Impact of normal weight obesity on fundamental motor skills in pre-school children aged 3 to 6 years
(2017)
Normal weight obesity is defined as having excessive body fat, but normal BMI. Even though previous research revealed that excessive body fat in children inhibited their physical activity and decreased motor performance, there has been only little evidence about motor performance of normal weight obese children. This study aims to establish whether normal weight obese pre-school children aged 3-6 years will have a significantly worse level of fundamental motor skills compared to normal weight non-obese counterparts. The research sample consisted of 152 pre-schoolers selected from a specific district of Prague, the Czech Republic. According to values from four skinfolds: triceps, subscapula, suprailiaca, calf, and BMI three categories of children aged 3-6 years were determined: A) normal weight obese n = 51; B) normal weight non-obese n = 52; C) overweight and obese n = 49. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2) was used for the assessment of fundamental motor skills. Normal weight obese children had significantly higher amount of adipose tissue p < 0.001 than normal weight non-obese children but the same average BMI. Moreover, normal weight obese children did not have significantly less amount of subcutaneous fat on triceps and calf compared to their overweight and obese peers. In majority of MABC-2 tests, normal weight obese pre-schoolers showed the poorest performance. Moreover, normal weight obese children had significantly worse total standard score = 38.82 compared to normal weight non-obese peers = 52.27; p < 0.05. In addition, normal weight obese children had a more than three times higher frequency OR = 3.69 CI95% (1.10; 12.35) of severe motor deficit performance <= 5th centile of the MABC-2 norm. These findings are strongly alarming since indices like BMI are not able to identify normal weight obese individual. We recommend verifying real portion of normal weight obese children as they are probably in higher risk of health and motor problems than overweight and obese population due to their low lean mass.
Global effects of income and income inequality on adult height and sexual dimorphism in height
(2017)
Objectives: Average adult height of a population is considered a biomarker of the quality of the health environment and economic conditions. The causal relationships between height and income inequality are not well understood. We analyze data from 169 countries for national average heights of men and women and national-level economic factors to test two hypotheses: (1) income inequality has a greater association with average adult height than does absolute income; and (2) neither income nor income inequality has an effect on sexual dimorphism in height. Methods: Average height data come from the NCD-RisC health risk factor collaboration. Economic indicators are derived from the World Bank data archive and include gross domestic product (GDP), Gross National Income per capita adjusted for personal purchasing power (GNI_ PPP), and income equality assessed by the Gini coefficient calculated by the Wagstaff method. Results: Hypothesis 1 is supported. Greater income equality is most predictive of average height for both sexes. GNI_ PPP explains a significant, but smaller, amount of the variation. National GDP has no association with height. Hypothesis 2 is rejected. With greater average adult height there is greater sexual dimorphism. Conclusions: Findings support a growing literature on the pernicious effects of inequality on growth in height and, by extension, on health. Gradients in height reflect gradients in social disadvantage. Inequality should be considered a pollutant that disempowers people from the resources needed for their own healthy growth and development and for the health and good growth of their children.
Objectives
During the early 1990s, the economic and political situation in eastern Germany changed overnight. Here, we use the rare chance of an experiment-like setting in humans and aim to test whether the rapid change of environmental conditions in eastern Germany in the 1990s led to a change in the sex-specific fat distribution pattern, an endocrine-influenced phenotypic marker.
METHODS
Based on a cross-sectional data set of 6- to 18-year-old girls and boys measured between 1982-1991 and 1997-2012, we calculated a skinfold ratio of triceps to subscapular and percentage of body fat. Using linear regressions, we tested for differences in percentage of body fat and skinfold ratio between these two time periods.
RESULTS
We found that the percentage of body fat increased in boys and girls, and they accumulated relatively more fat on extremities than on the trunk in all BMI groups measured after 1997 as compared to those measured between 1982 and 1991.
CONCLUSIONS
Concurrent with drastic and rapid changes of environmental conditions, the body fat distribution of children and adolescents changed to a more feminized pattern during the early 1990s in an East German population. The changes in this endocrinologically mediated pattern might be associated with the increased exposure of individuals to endocrine-disrupting chemicals which are known to influence the endocrine, reproductive, and immune systems in animals and humans.
Changes in body height throughout extended historic periods are very complex and dynamic processes. Thispilot study aimed to investigate the pattern of longitudinal height z-scores changes in children before and after entering kindergarten. In summer 2016, we measured height and weight of 32 children from 4 groups of two kindergartens aged 3–6 years. All ages were centered according to the age of entry into the kindergarten. For each child we determined mean z-scores for height before and after entering the kindergarten, and assessed the variances for each kindergarten group. Twenty-two children targeted in height z-scores towards average height of their respective kindergarten group, 10 children did not. Due to the small numbers, the convergence in height variance however, remained insignificant (chi-squared independence test, p = 0.127). Additional studies with larger sample sizes are needed to confirm this pilot study.
Eighteen scientists met at Jurata, Poland, to discuss various aspects of the transition from adolescence to adulthood. This transition is a delicate period facing complex interactions between the adolescents and the social group they belong to. Social identity, group identification and identity signalling, but also stress affecting basal salivary cortisol rhythms, hypertension, inappropriate nutrition causing latent and manifest obesity, moreover, in developing and under-developed countries, parasitosis causing anaemia thereby impairing growth and development, are issues to be dealt with during this period of the human development. In addition, some new aspects of the association between weight, height and head circumference in the newborns were discussed, as well as intrauterine head growth and head circumference as health risk indicators.