Moscow University
Anthropology
Bulletin
Anthropology
Bulletin
Ulyanovsk State University, Ulyanovsk
The aim of this study is to identify specific regional features of anthropometric indices for school-age boys and girls of Ulyanovsk city and Ulyanovsk region. This paper is based on materials of an anthropological cross-sectional study involving students from 25 primary and secondary schools in the municipal districts of Ulyanovsk and Ulyanovsk region, Volga Federal District of Russia. Over the period of five years, 4053 students were surveyed, including 2063 boys and 1990 girls aged from 7 to 17 years, all of them permanently residing in the region. The anthropometric program included the following list of somatic indicators: stature, body weight, chest circumference and 4 circumference measurements – waist, thigh, shoulder and shin. The measurements were performed using standard anthropometric method [Bunak, 1941]. For each student, the body mass index was calculated. To identify secular changes in anthropometric indices, the study used materials of surveys conducted by N.A. Saurov in 1976–1977 and by S.P. Levushkin in 1996–1998. For a comparative analysis of stature and body weight of Ulyanovsk schoolchildren with their peers living on other territories, the study used information about total body measurements of schoolchildren in 3 Russian regions. In almost all age groups, urban schoolchildren, both girls and boys, are taller than their peers from rural areas. While growth curve trends are similar, the difference in height and weight indices at each age in boys and girls differs. In girls, the difference in indices is less evident than in boys. Differences in stature and body weight in older school-age students are virtually absent, since the body measurements, upon reaching definitive values, become more stable and less able to change under the influence of external factors. In urban boys, limb circumference values are significantly higher than that of rural area students. Urban girls show a tendency towards increased fat deposition in the corpus and its reduction in the extremities, which may indicate abdominal fat deposition, a significant disease predictor. With age, there is a reduction in the proportion of students with satisfactory adaptation and an increase in the proportion of adolescents who manifest straining of adaptation mechanisms and poor adaptation. For the majority of age groups, girls are less susceptible to the environmental impact and have a greater adaptive capacity than boys. Students of young and middle school-ages from Ulyanovsk region do not differ in stature from their peers in other compared regions. However, teenage boys from Ulyanovsk region are noticeably shorter than their peers in Nizhny Novgorod city and region, Arkhangelsk region and the city of Saratov. The body weight of the students from Ulyanovsk region does not differ from that of their peers in Nizhny Novgorod city and region, but is greater than that of the students in Saratov.
anthropometric indices, adaptive capacity, regional features
Цит.: Ermolaeva S.V., Khayrullin R.M. Regional features of anthropometric indices of school-age boys and girls from Ulyanovsk city and Ulyanovsk Region // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2017; 1/2017; с. 42-56
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