Abstract
We studied the physique of school children in Yamabe district, Ohami-shirasato town, Chiba prefecture from 1904 to 1977. The main results were as follows: The physiques (height, weight and chest measurement) of the children admitted to school from 1904 to 1907 were better than average for children of the same ages, throughout Japan. Gradually the measurements became less than average. However, children admitted to school in 1972-1974 were better than average in some aspects of physique. Rohrer indexes of the children were usually superior to the all-Japan averages. Considering the chronological change of the indexes between urban and rural areas in Japan, the physique of the children in Yamabe district has changed from that of a rural area to that of an urban one. In principle component analysis, the eigen values of principle component 1 distributed from 11.0 to 13.4 and explained 60%-70% of the variances of all measurements. In factor analysis, factor 1 explained about 80% of the variance of all mesurements Factor loadings were higher for height than those for weight and chest measurement for all school years. The estimated communalities of 2 big factors were generally high in all measurements.
