Abstract
The author extracted 3, 200 samples (100 males and 100 females for every age group from 5 to 20 years) from the material of measurements obtained by the Japanese Body-build Investigation (measured in 1966 and 1967), and calculated seven indices to clarify the age changes in body proportion of the Japanese.
The main results are as follows:
1) The mean values of seven indices are given in Table 1 and the mean curves of age changes are shown in Fig. 1. The curves are classified into the following three types: the increasing type (total posterior arm length/stature, waist girth/bust girth), the decreasing type (foot length/stature, head girth/bust girth), and the increasing-decreasing type (waist height/stature, lower extremity length/stature, hip girth/bust girth).
2) Body proportion changes gradually from infant to adult body type indicating different phases in each sex. Similar body types were found in some adjacent age groups to be able to bring together. Analyzing the data in Table 2, Fig. 2-1, and Fig. 2-2, the author obtained the stages of growth based on body proportion which is shown in Table 3.
