Growth and somatotype of urban and rural Javanese children in Yogyakarta and Bantul, Indonesia

Abstract

Stature and weight growth, and Heath-Carter somatotypes were studied in two groups of Indonesian children of 7 to 15 years of age. One was an urban Yogyakarta group of 340 boys and 373 girls from well-off families, and the other was a rural Bantul group of 222 boys and 243 girls from low-income families. As for general body size, the Yogyakarta children were taller and heavier than the Bantul children in both sexes. During puberty, the Yogyakarta girls were not larger than the Yogyakarta boys, whereas the Bantul girls had greater stature and weight than the Bantul boys. In the somatochart, the Yogyakarta children before puberty were distributed halfway between endomorphy and mesomorphy in both sexes, and thereafter the boys tended toward ectomorphy and the girls toward endomorphy. The somatotype of the Bantul children remained ectomorphic, but differed by sex with a greater mesomorphic element in the boys and a greater endomorphic element in the girls.