Anthropometric Study among Chilean Older Adults

Background: The number of people over 60 years of age is rapidly growing worldwide. The ageing of population increases the need for new public health policies and products. In this context, it is primordial to have access to the anthropometric characterisation of the elderly population. Objective: This investigation describes the somatotype components of a representative sample of elderly from Chile.Methods: In a cross-sectional anthropometric study, we assessed 200 older adults (60 to 80 years old). The study was conducted using the Heath-Carter anthropometric method, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to redefine and optimise the cluster definition. Statistical differences were established for male and female among the somatotype categories (endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph) using t-test. For the analysis of the progression of a variable among the different age bins were used ANOVA and Tukey has a post hoc test. Results: the somatotype of the male and female showed a higher frequency of mesomorph-endomorph biotype (77.5% and 52.4% respectively) follow by mesomorph-endomorph in males and an endo-mesomorph in females (10.8% and 29.8% respectively). The sample differs significantly by gender with a higher endomorphic component in females from 60-80 years old. The somatochart show displacement in men and female trough the endomorphic component. The PCA and hierarchical clustering identify four main new clusters.Conclusions: These results provide evidence of an increase in gender difference regarding anthropometric parameters, also redefine the most frequent somatotype assignation in elderly adults. This information is essential for new public health policies and the design of new products.