Pre-school physique and late-adolescent somatotype.

Abstract

SummaryPhysique photographs of 319 pre-school children were evaluated on somatotype-like variables by three methods: ratings by inexperienced judges, ratings by experienced judges, and statistical prediction of the variables that now determine adult somatotype—mature height, a height-weight ratio, and a trunk index (TI). Inter-rater agreement and one- to two-year stability were moderate for both groups of judges' ratings of endomorphy and ectomorphy, low for their ratings of mesomorphy. Experienced and inexperienced judges showed higher correlation between each others' ratings (0·8 for endomorphy and ectomorphy, 0·6 for mesomorphy) than with the statistical somatotype forecasts; inexperienced judges' ratings had little relation to the somatotype forecasts for mesomorphy and ectomorphy.Of this sample, 100 boys and 50 girls followed into adolescence were somatotyped by Sheldon. Pre-school ratings by inexperienced judges showed significant but low correlations with adolescent somatotype (0·3–0·5 for different components), those by experienced judges somewhat higher (0·4–0·6 for composite scores); the measurement-based method showed the highest predictive correlations (0·6–0·7).TI, a ratio of thoracic to abdominal trunk area, showed pronounced sex differences at the pre-school as well as the adolescent ages. Boys' means were identical and girls' very close at the two ages. Correlation of early and later TI was 0·72 for the boys, 0·63 for the girls.Factor analysis showed differences in the models of the four methods. The judges, expert or inexperienced, produced two factors in their ratings: relative massiveness and muscularity. The somatotype forecasts and somatotypes, in line with Sheldon's current methods, produced three: relative massiveness, muscularity, and size.