Physical Growth and Somatotype of Sasak Schoolchildren at Different Altitude in Lombok Island

Abstract

The human life cycle can be staged into neonatal, infancy, childhood, juvenile, puberty, adolescence, adulthood, and senescence. During this cycle, the body changes significantly in size, structure, proportions, and composition. The physical growth and somatotype of schoolchildren are one of the important phases in human life cycle. The puberty stage within this age range are indicated by the growth spurt of stature (BH) and weight (BW) and followed by change in somatotype. The focus of this research is to evaluate the age-related body size and shape variations at different altitude in Sasak children. A cross sectional growth study was conducted during July to December 2012. The samples are students of kindergarten to senior high schools aged 3 to 19 years. All of subjects are rural children who lives in low (16 to 28 m asl), medium (525 to 628 m asl), and high altitude (1130 to 1213 m asl). Ten anthropometric measurements are used to determined the growth of body size and shape. The result showed the children in low altitude were higher and heavier than medium and high altitudes. Until puberty, the children in medium have same stature and weight with those reside in high altitude but shorter and lighter thereafter. The difference of height and weight are statistically different in girls and indifferent in boys. In growth of body shape, the Sasak children have a common pattern of somatotype composition. It is an increased in endomorphy, a decreased in mesomorphy, and an increased in ectomorphy during growth. The girl in medium altitude show delayed and slowly increasing of endomorphy and slowly decreasing of mesomorphy. Socioeconomic factors such as family income and parental education gave more influence to the differentiation than the altitude factor.