Abstract
Manual anthropometrics are used extensively in medical practice and epidemiological studies to assess an individual's health. However, traditional techniques reduce the complicated shape of human bodies to a series of simple size measurements and derived health indices, such as the body mass index (BMI), the waist-hip-ratio (WHR) and waist-by-height0.5 ratio (WHT.5R). Three-dimensional (3D) imaging systems capture detailed and accurate measures of external human form and have the potential to surpass traditional measures in health applications. The aim of this study was to investigate how shape measurement can complement existing anthropometric techniques in the assessment of human form. Geometric morphometric methods and principal components analysis were used to extract independent, scale-invariant features of torso shape from 3D scans of 43 male participants. Linear regression analyses were conducted to determine whether novel shape measures can complement anthropometric indices when estimating waist skinfold thickness measures. Anthropometric indices currently used in practice explained up to 52.2% of variance in waist skinfold thickness, while a combined regression model using WHT.5R and shape measures explained 76.5% of variation. Measures of body shape provide additional information regarding external human form and can complement traditional measures currently used in anthropometric practice to estimate central adiposity.
Highlights
Manual anthropometrics are used extensively in medical practice and epidemiological studies to assess an individual’s health
Traditional manual anthropometrics have been used extensively in medical practice and epidemiological studies to derive health risk indicators, since it has been suggested that human body shape is dependent on its underlying composition, including soft and skeletal tissues[1]
Size measures, such as sagittal diameter, waist girth and WHT.5R have been found to demonstrate improved correlations with quantities of abdominal visceral fat and greater associations with metabolic disease risks compared to body mass index (BMI) 7,8. Relative measures, such as the WHR, provide information about the size of the abdomen relative to the rest of the body, so has been used as a proxy of torso shape and central obesity, defined as excess fat around the abdominal region[7]. These relatively simple approaches to measuring external human form only utilise a small number of manual anthropometrics, which are prone to human error and limited by their simplicity, as they do not fully describe the complex three-dimensional (3D) variations in human body s hape[4,9,10,11]
Summary
Manual anthropometrics are used extensively in medical practice and epidemiological studies to assess an individual’s health. Traditional manual anthropometrics have been used extensively in medical practice and epidemiological studies to derive health risk indicators, since it has been suggested that human body shape is dependent on its underlying composition, including soft and skeletal tissues[1] Indices, such as the body mass index (BMI), waist girth and the waist-hip ratio (WHR) are used to assess variations in human body dimensions and physical h ealth[2,3,4]. The objectives of this study were to: demonstrate the application of an analytical procedure for extracting scale-invariant features of human body shape from 3D scan data; compare traditional manual measures and shape measures when assessing variations in external human form; determine whether shape measures can complement manual anthropometric techniques in estimating sum-of-skinfold thickness around the waist. We hypothesise that scale-invariant measures of body shape will identify additional information compared to size measures regarding variations in external human form and will complement existing anthropometric techniques for estimating subcutaneous central adiposity
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