Longitudinal anthropometry of children and adolescents using 3D-body scanning

Abstract

3D-body scanning anthropometry is a suitable method for characterization of physiological development of children and adolescents, and for understanding onset and progression of disorders like overweight and obesity. Here we present a novel body typing approach to describe and to interpret longitudinal 3D-body scanning data of more than 800 children and adolescents measured in up to four follow-ups in intervals of 1 year, referring to an age range between 6 and 18 years. We analyzed transitions between body types assigned to lower-, normal- and overweight participants upon development of children and adolescents. We found a virtually parallel development of the body types with only a few transitions between them. Body types of children and adolescents tend to conserve their weight category. 3D body scanning anthropometry in combination with body typing constitutes a novel option to investigate onset and progression of obesity in children.

Fig 1. Body type trajectories upon development.

Longitudinal assignment of body types and of the transitions between them in follow-up measurements shows a trend from ‘younger’ to ‘older’ body types, and the conservation of the weight category. The connections indicate transitions between the body types obtained from the measurements of the same participants.