Growth patterns of Labrador Inuit youth: I. Height and weight

The purpose of this study was to describe standing height and body weight recorded in 1991 from 32% (n = 100) of the Labrador Inuit youth aged between 5-18 years living in Nain. The results demonstrated that females are taller than males until the age of 13 years. Growth in height seemed to level off at 15 years in females and 16 years in males. The greatest increase in height was between the ages of 11-13 years for females and 13-15 years for males. The largest increase in weight was between 12-16 years for both sexes. The data was compared with National Center for Health Statistics Growth Curves of United States youth. For this sample, height of the Labrador Inuit lies between the 10th and 50th percentiles, and weight lies between the 50th and 75th percentiles, while weight for height lies between the 75th and 95th percentiles. These results were similar to other studies of Inuit youth from Alaska, Canada and Greenland. In fact, the growth pattern of high weight for height demonstrated in Labrador seems to be typical of the Inuit population. Comparison of this data with that of stature recorded for Labrador Inuit between 1880-1928, although derived from small samples, suggests that a secular trend of increase in height with time for both sexes has occurred.