FAT DISTRIBUTION IN RELATION TO SEX AND SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS IN CHILDREN 4-19 YEARS

Fat distribution was studied in a urban sample of boys and girls 4.5 t o 19.5 years from the Basque province of Biscay by means of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of five skinfolds. The PCA extracted four com ponents, which explained 99.1% of the total variance. The first princi pal component revealed strong stability across age and sex, and was re lated to a pattern of central body fat distribution. The three other c omponents, upper-lower trunk fat, lateral-medial trunk fat, and upper- lower extremity fat, showed poor stability due largely to the influenc e of age and, to a lesser degree, sex. In both sexes, individual score s of the four factors did not show multivariate differences by socioec onomic status when a MANOVA with age, age(2) and age(3) as covariates was done. Nevertheless, the first factor scores were significantly hig her only in the poorer socioeconomic group of girls. The results are e xplained in the context of either different lifestyles related to soci oeconomic status, a protective effect against environmental stress on urban males, or greater plasticity of trunk fat relative to extremity fat in females. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.