E. Rebato et al., FAT DISTRIBUTION IN RELATION TO SEX AND SOCIOECONOMIC-STATUS IN CHILDREN 4-19 YEARS, American journal of human biology, 10(6), 1998, pp. 799-806
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.