Physical growth of school children of the private net of education of the city of Ponta Grossa, PR

Resumen

The objective of this study was to demonstrate the pattern of growth of school children of the private net of education from the city of Ponta Grossa, PR, Brazil, as well to analyze possible differences in growth of children from 6 to10 years of age. The sample consisted of 188 children (89 female and 99 male). Anthropometrics measures were: body mass; height; trunk length; length of lower members; and s kin folds. To verify differences between the ages the unifatorial ANOVA and the Kruskal Wallis tests were used. To follow-up specific differences the Tukey and Mann-Whitney tests, with the value of “p” corrected for the test of Bonferroni, were used, with the alpha level stipulated in p<0,05. For female, it was observed that the biggest percentile differences were between 8 and 9 years of age for most of the variables, showing a plateau between 9 and 10 years, except for adiposity that demonstrated no differences in any of the ages. For male, the pattern of growth seems to be different, not having an age interval in which the majority of the variables present the same growth speed. Similar to the girls, it was not observed any significant difference for adiposity with the advance of the age in the boys. The high levels of body mass and adiposity found in some age levels, showed the necessity of a longitudinal study to follow children´s growth as well to implement intervention strategies, aiming the reduction of body fat.