American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 11, 418-432, Copyright © 1962 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Anthropometry in Clinical Appraisal of Nutritional Status

¹ From the Department of Growth and Genetics, Fels Research Institute, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Anthropometry "works" in growth appraisal within the limits of the limiting assumptions. Larger children within a gene pool are bigger than those who are smaller, but only after parental size is first taken into account. Nutritional anthropometry, after all, is of limited value in assessing the status of foundlings. While it is true that fatter people have stored more calories than those who are lean, it is assumed that we are talking about constant maturity status and actual measurements of fat and not mere manipulations of size and weight.

Anthropometry can be a valuable adjunct to clinical appraisal providing a quantitative indication of the rapidity of size increase, the relative amount of different tissues present, and (in adults) an indication of the effective caloric excess. However, where there are specific investigative problems, in contrast to routine appraisal, even greater care should be taken in the selection of anthropometric measurements. Since the composition of the body may be altered by manipulating the proportion of various nutrients during growth, extreme care must be taken to make tissue-specific anthropometric measurements, the better to discriminate between fat and lean.

Actually, anthropometry means only "measurement" whether with the simplest calipers or through the medium of densitometric roentgenography or ultrasonics. Anthropometry can be infinitely extended to include any anatomically defined or physically differentiated organ or tissue that can be affected by nutritional status. Anthropometry "works" within limits but our purpose now is to improve its workings and extend the limits in the direction of improved assessments of nutritional status.