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5. Longitudinal study of body types in schoolchildren of Gomel at puberty

Longitudinal study of body types in schoolchildren of Gomel at puberty

Melnik V.А.

Gomel State Medical University, 5 Lange Street, Gomel, 246000, Republic of Belarus

Melnik Viktor A., PhD., associate professor, ID ORCID 0000-0002-0789-3054; e-mail: melnik76@tut.by

Abstract

The aim of research is to individualize determination of the nature of transformation of somatotypes among city schoolchildren at puberty. The material for research was results of the complex morphofunctional survey of city schoolchildren at puberty over 2010–2014. Repeated annual surveys of the same children, of them 38 boys aged 13–17 and 51 girls aged 10–14 (longitudinal method) were carried out. Typical somatic types were determined by means of a new qualitative scheme developed I.I. Salivon and N.I. Polina [Salivon, Polina, 2003]. By the example of the longitudinal study of schoolchildren of Gomel secondary schools for the first time we managed to individualize the definition of the character of body type deformations in boys and girls at puberty, which was reflected in changing of prevalence of typical somatic variants until the puberty process was over. The analysis of the annual survey of the children studying at secondary schools of Gomel at puberty (girls at the age 10–14 and boys at the age 13–17) over 2010–2014 revealed that the schoolchildren of both the gender groups at pubescence observed a statistically significant (р<0.05) increase of hypersomic body types and decrease of leptosomic ones. At the same time, the sexual differentiation associated with changes in hormone status forming somatic peculiar features showed that the increased percentage of hypersomic boys was at the expense of muscular mass growth and that in girls – due to the increase in subcutaneous adipopexis in body and limbs. The analysis of individual dynamics of body types at puberty and hormonal reorganization in boys and girls shows that transitions of some body types into others during a year happen more often within the limits of adjacent somatotypes (for example, mesoleptosomic types turn mesosomic; or mesosomic turn mesohypersomic etc.). When the schoolchildren reached puberty, they returned to the initial somatotype which was characteristic for ontogenesis before puberty. Only 5% boys and girls detected significant changes in body types.

Keywords

anthropology, auxology, schoolchildren, somatotype, body type deformations at puberty

Цит.: Melnik V.А. Longitudinal study of body types in schoolchildren of Gomel at puberty // Moscow University Anthropology Bulletin (Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seria XXIII. Antropologia), 2016; 1/2016; с. 86-92