Tracking variability: recent anthropometric data for croatian population and comparison with other world populations

The variability that exists within the populations of individual countries and the variability that exists between the populations of different countries are both of interest in practical application. For these reasons, a comparison is made in this work between certain anthropometric variables of our sample of Croatian population and anthropometric variables that are available for other human populations in the world of the same or a similar age. The total sample was 1,372 subjects aged from 23 to 59 years old. For the purpose of comparison, data were taken from the study "International Data on Anthropometry" which provides an overview of anthropometric variables for many world populations, as well as data from Rudan's research that was carried out on Croatian population in the late seventies of the last century. Mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation have been calculated for every measured parameter. A comparison between the two research samples of Croatian population fairly displays up going trend, for body mass and other bodily dimensions, formed in three decades of difference. Mean value for body height in Rudan's sample is 161.0 cm, and for Bubas's sample in this research was 170.6 cm, both values state for Croatian population but with difference of more than 30 years. Human biologists use term "secular trend" to describe alterations in the measurable characteristics of a population of humans that occur over a century. Accordingly, in adult age, the rate of gain, concerning body height, is 10 to 30 mm per decade. The changes in body proportions during recent decades are less marked than those in body size, but the relationships between stature and weight within one national group have changed significantly.