皮下脂肪層の生長及びその分布型に関する小考

抄録

In our country, very few studies on growth of the Japanese by means of measuring body composition have been performed. Up to the present time, most basic informations regarding growth pattern of physical characteristics have been obtained on the basis of traditional anthropometry. In spite of dealing with the living subjects, the chief method of anthropometry was to measure external dimensions of the skeletal frame. Frankly speaking, this method omits or neglects variation of inner dimensions of human body such as fat and musculature. The techniques of traditional anthropometry will be more useful if knowledges of inner dimensions of human body along with their relationship with external dimensions are added. In this respect, the present author thinks that recent rapid progress of the measurement of body composition or somatometry in foreign countries could be interpreted as extension of traditional anthropometry.
These arguments are described in Section I along with an introduction to several methods concerned with prediction of total body fat.
Section II deals with growth pattern of subcutaneous fat of the Fels children, covering 4.5 to 10.5 years of age. The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. S. M. GARN for giving an opportunity to examine these data. Measurements were taken on anteroposterior roentgenograms of those lower legs, at the level of maximum breadth of calf. In medial fat breadth, there is no significant difference between mean values in each two-year-interval in each sex respectively, though girls have greater values than boys. Bone breadth of the lower leg, however, shows a consistent increase. On the other hand, muscle breadth shows significant decrease between 8.5 and 10.5 years of age in both sexes. This discrepancy may occur from simple linear measurement way in muscle breadth, because muscle and fat are themselves a volume. The present author is trying to obtain a new method to calculate muscle volume as accurate as possible. Also, it seems to be necessary to convert measurement values of fat breadth into a logarithmic scale, because this brings the distribution of the measurement values more nearly to Gaussian form. When this conversion is carried out, then the author intends to compare growth pattern of the Fels children with the Japanese children or the hydrids between the Americans and the Japanese. Contents of Section III are concerned with Steatopygia which frequently appears only in the women of Bushman and Hottentot. He discussed on several works by other investigators concerning relative fat patterning, hereditary factor of fat, adaptation of skin and rectal temperatures in the tropic and so on. However, he has not yet arrived at definite conclusion about the cause of the formation of Steatopygia.