Differences in longitudinal and circular body dimensions of students aged 13 measured in 1970 and 1995

Abstract

During school age tracking the student growth and development enables us to assess the regularity of the developmental period. By measuring the morphological measures we are coming to the data on the growth and development of student as a whole and in individual segments of the body. If we want to get to the fact if there is acceleration in the growth and development, it is necessary to compare the growth and development, with the growth and development of student the same age measured more than twenty years ago. The aim of this study was to determine the difference in longitudinal and circular skeleton dimensions of student 13 years old measured in 1970 and 1995 year. Morphological measurements were performed by standard instruments by the methodology recommended by the International Biological Program (IBP). Determination of differences was done by using the Difference test from the statistical package Statistica 8.0 for Windows, considering data of means and standard deviations of respondents. The results indicate that the students who are measured in 1995 have bigger longitudinal and circular dimensions as compared to students of the same age measured in 1970 year.