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Reducing socioeconomic differences in anthropometric characteristics among young Polish women

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2021

Katarzyna Kliś Open the ORCID record for Katarzyna Kliś [Opens in a new window]  and
Iwona Wronka Open the ORCID record for Iwona Wronka [Opens in a new window]
Katarzyna Kliś*
Affiliation:
Department of Human Biology, University of Wrocław, Poland
Iwona Wronka
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: kataka.klis@gmail.com
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Abstract

The aim of this paper was to evaluate the socioeconomic differences in adult anthropometric parameters of young women in Poland. The study was cross-sectional and conducted in the years 2015 to 2018 among 1257 women aged 19–24 years. The heights, weights, wrist widths and waist, hip and chest circumferences of the subjects were measured. Body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), waist-to-chest ratio (WCR) and chest-to-height ratio (CHtR) were calculated. A survey was conducted to collect data on the women’s socioeconomic characteristics. The application of the Generalized Linear Model (GLM) including all socioeconomic indicators (urbanization level of place of residence in childhood, parental education, number of siblings, material conditions) revealed no significant association of these with any of the analysed anthropometric traits. The results of the logistic regression showed no significant differences in the risk of underweight, too low abdominal adiposity or too high abdominal adiposity. However, the risk of overweight and obesity was significantly affected by the degree of urbanization of the women’s place of residence in childhood and by their number of siblings. The results show that the socioeconomic factors that once had a significant influence on anthropometric traits currently do not play such an important role. This change can be explained by the equalization of living conditions and lifestyles of individual social groups in Poland.

Keywords

Anthropometric parametersBody proportionSocioeconomic status
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , March 2022 , pp. 347 - 353
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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