Differences in body composition between 12 years old pupils both genders from center and suburb

Abstract

Abstract: This research was implemented on a population of 12 years old, sixth grade pupils - N=84 (34 male and 50 female) from an elementary school in center, and 110 pupils from an elementary school in suburb (59 male and 51 female). 12 variables through which body composition can be determined, were measured: body mass (BM), height (BH), body mass index (BMI), percentile distribution of body mass index (BMIperc), percentage of fat tissue (%FT), percentage of muscle tissue (%MT), abdominal (abdsf), dorsal (dorssf) and upper arm skin folds (uparmsf) and basal metabolism (basmet). After that two more variables were estimated: the sum of three skin folds as a variable (sumsf) and the sum of body mass index (BMI) and the sum of three skin folds as a new variable - bmisum3, for estimating obesity. The sample was divided into four subsamples: male from center (N=34), female from center (N=50), male from suburb (N=59) and female from suburb (N=51). The purpose of the research was to estimate the differences between the groups, if any, in all variables, so ANOVA (univariant analysis of variance) and MANOVA (multivariant analysis of variance) were calculated, and afterwards LSD tests between all groups and in all variables, to define where the differences between groups come from. Obtained results show that statistically significant differences between four groups existed only in two variables: percentage of muscle tissue (musc%) and basal metabolism (basmet), on a level of .001 and .000, respectively. From the significance of the LSD tests it can be concluded that the differences between groups in those two variables appear due to differences between male pupils from center and female pupils from both schools, and also from differences between male pupils from suburb and female pupils from both schools.