Growth in some physical dimensions in relation to adolescent growth spurt among rural Indian children

Measurements other than weight and height are rarely used in adolescent growth assessment. It is necessary to examine changes in other physical dimensions especially in relation to spurt in height as stature growth has a significance in the assessment of adolescent growth. The present study, therefore, reports data on four such measurements viz. foot length, sitting height, leg length and shoulder width along with height in a semilongitudinal growth study carried out over a 3 year period, on rural Indian boys (n = 587) and girls (n = 433), to examine the occurrence of their maximum increments in relation to spurt in height. Our analysis shows that the sequence of spurt in these physical dimensions is the same in the case of boys and girls, viz. spurt in foot length and leg length occurs before age at peak height velocity (14.3 yr--boys, 12.1 yr--girls) while that for sitting height and shoulder width occurs after attaining the peak height velocity. While foot length is the first one to reach peak (14 yr--boys, 11 yr--girls), shoulder width is the last one (16 yr--boys, 14 yr--girls) in this sequence. Thus the duration between the first spurt and the last spurt was observed to be larger in case of girls (3 yr) as compared to boys (2 yr) and apart from biological differences it could be partly due to the differential treatment received by rural girls. Sitting heights and leg lengths of rural children were significantly (p < 0.01) lower compared to Indian well-off and British children suggest that undernutrition prevailing in rural community affects all components of linear growth.