Longitudinal growth in height, weight, and bone age of Guatemalan Ladino and Indian schoolchildren

Abstract

Three longitudinal samples of Guatemalan schoolchildren are compared for amounts and rates of growth in height, weight, and bone age. The samples include children of two ethnic backgrounds: Ladinos, Spanish-speaking people of, generally, Western cultural orientation; and Indians, people of Mayan cultural descent. The Indians are of very low socioeconomic status (SES) and attend a public school in a rural village. The Ladinos come from two SES groups living in Guatemala City, one of high SES attending a private school and the other of low SES attending a public school. Graphical and statistical analyses show that for all samples of boys and girls there are generally, significant differences between samples (high SES>low SES>Indian) for amounts of growth in height, weight, and bone age. Boys show significant differences in rates of growth between samples, with the high SES sample growing more rapidly than the two low SES samples. Girls show significant differences in the rate of growth in height, but not in the rate of growth in weight or bone age. For Both boys and girls, rates of growth in height and weight differ more between samples than does rate of Skeltal development. These results demonstrate that (1) SES-related deficits in growth are cumulative during childhood and early adolescence, that (2) rates of growth for boys are, generally, more sensitive to the influence of SES than are the growth rates of girls, and that (3) childhood growth deficits of low SES children of low SES children are likely to carry over into adulthood.

Ontogeny of sexual size dimorphism and environmental quality in Guatemalan children

“…The mean values of SES are high SES Ladinos 5 12.21 6 3.39, middle SES Ladinos 5 10.18 6 6.64, low SES Ladinos 5 5.75 6 0.40, and very low SES Maya 5 4.96 6 0.57. The differences between all two-way comparisons of these means are significant (P < 0.05, Bogin et al, 1989). Site visits to the schools and the analysis of SES scores indicated statistically significant differences between schools in parental SES, but relative homogeneity with respect to SES within schools.…”

“…Reduced amounts and rates of growth in height were shown to be the case in a previous analysis for these same groups (Bogin et al, 1989). That previous analysis used smaller mixed-longitudinal sample sizes than for the present analysis and treated the data as if they were pure crosssectional in nature.…”

“…This paper builds on previously published studies that evaluated Guatemalan Maya and Ladino sex-specific growth curves in height MacVean, 1983, 1984;Bogin et al, 1989Bogin et al, , 1992. Results of these studies indicate that the mean height of both girls and boys is greatest for the high SES Ladinos, decreasing for each of the lower SES groups.…”

“…After 1980, participants were measured only in Grades 1, 2, 4, and 6 of primary school and Grades 1 and 3 of secondary school (Bogin et al, 1989). Given this measurement schedule, an ideal longitudinal record for an individual would include at least six measurements over a 9-year period.…”

“…The participants comprising this sample include many of the same individuals analyzed in previous articles on growth in height and other anthropometric dimensions MacVean, 1983, 1984;Bogin et al, 1989Bogin et al, , 1992 and those articles may be consulted for anthropometric statistics (for descriptive statistics of the stature for the samples used in this study see Table 3). New to the present study are larger samples of mixed-longitudinal data for all of SES and ethnic groups, especially for the Maya.…”