Lidia Perenc
Anna Radochońska
Sexual dimorphism of selected anthropometric traits in children and adolescents from Rzeszów at the ages of 3–18 examined in the years 1978–2004
Lidia Perenc
Anna Radochońska
Institute of Health Sciences, Medical College of Rzeszow University, Rzeszow, Poland
Faculty of Education, University of Rzeszow, Rzeszów, Poland
Abstract
Introduction: Genetic determination of sex results in human dimorphism. In successive generations changes in the direction of intersexual differentiation of anthropometric traits may be observed .
Aim: The assessment of changes in sexual dimorphic differentiation of metrical parameters of the head and body in children and adolescents over the period of 25 years.
Material and method: In the years 1978/1979 until 2003/2004 an anthropometric assessment of 7478 children from Rzeszów at the ages of 3–18 was conducted. The collected material was used for the evaluation of dimorphic differentiation of selected anthropometric traits according to the dimorphism index (DI).
Results: The results confirmed a decrease in intersexual differences in the head length at the ages of 15–17, in the trunk length and the hip width in puberty, in the head width and the chest circumference, in the thickness of abdominal skinfold in the navel region and the total adiposity in the whole examined period of ontogenesis. An increase in intersexual differentiation was observed in relation to the face height at the ages of 16–18.
Conclusions: The metric parameters of the head and body are subject to two-directional intersexual differentiation
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