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Educational level and its relationship with body height and popliteal height in Chilean male workers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2019

Carlos Viviani Open the ORCID record for Carlos Viviani [Opens in a new window] ,
Héctor Ignacio Castellucci ,
Pedro Arezes ,
Ángelo Bartsch ,
Sara Bragança ,
Johan F. M. Molenbroek ,
Marta Martínez  and
Verónica Aparici
Carlos Viviani*
Affiliation:
Escuela de Kinesiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile
Héctor Ignacio Castellucci
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudio del Trabajo y Factores Humanos, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
Pedro Arezes
Affiliation:
ALGORITMI Centre, School of Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal
Ángelo Bartsch
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudio del Trabajo y Factores Humanos, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile
Sara Bragança
Affiliation:
Research, Innovation and Enterprise, Solent University, Southampton, UK
Johan F. M. Molenbroek
Affiliation:
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering Section Applied Ergonomics and Design, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
Marta Martínez
Affiliation:
Mutual de la Cámara Chilena de la Construcción, Santiago, Chile
Verónica Aparici
Affiliation:
Carrera de Kinesiología, Escuela de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad de Viña del Mar, Viña del Mar, Chile
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

A secular trend in body height has been experienced in many nations and populations, hypothesized to be the result of better living conditions. Educational level has been shown to be closely associated with body height. This study examined the changes in body height and popliteal height in a group of adult Chilean male workers by age cohort and the relationship of these with educational level. The body heights and popliteal heights of 1404 male workers from the Valparaíso and Metropolitan regions of Chile were measured in 2016. The sample was grouped by level of education (primary, secondary, technical and university) and age (21–30, 31–40 and 41–50 years). Robust ANOVA and post-hoc analyses using a one-step modified M-estimation of location were conducted based on bootstrap resampling. Both body height and popliteal height increased from the older to the younger age cohort. The largest increase was from the 41–50 to the 21–30 group, with a 1.1% increase in body height and 1.7% increase in popliteal height. When educational level was introduced into the analysis there was a marked increase in both body height and popliteal height for each cohort, but only in primary- and secondary-educated workers. Despite showing an overall increase in body height and popliteal height, younger workers with the highest levels of education showed fewer differences between them than did older workers with less education. The differences were larger in the older than in the younger cohorts. Similarly, this trend was less clear in workers with higher levels of education (technical and university), probably because of a dilution effect caused by increased access to higher education by workers in the lower income quintiles.

Keywords

Secular trendLower LegAnthropometry
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 52 , Issue 5 , September 2020 , pp. 734 - 745
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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