Maqsood Arusa, Naumenko Daniel J, Hermanussen Michael, Scheffler Christiane, Groth Detlef
University of Potsdam, Human Biology, Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam, Germany.
University of Colorado, Boulder, Anthropology, Boulder, CO 80309-0233 USA.
Anthropol Anz. 2020 May 20. doi: 10.1127/anthranz/2020/1237.
: Length-for-age is considered the indicator of choice in monitoring the long-term impact of chronic nutritional deficiency. : We hypothesized that short term increments of body weight cross-correlate with increments of the lower leg length. : We re-analyzed the association between weekly measurements of weight and of lower leg length in 34 healthy German children, aged 2.9-15.9 years. The data are a subset of measurements originally published in 1988 (Hermanussen et al. 1988a). As the growth measurements were often not equally spaced in time due to interposed holidays and illness, the incremental rates for weight and lower leg length were smoothed using spline functions. Autocorrelation and cross-correlation functions were calculated for weight increments and lower leg length increments. : Height and weight increments are pulsatile. Autocorrelations indicated that mini growth spurts occur at irregular intervals. Lack of cross-correlations between weight and lower leg length indicated that mini spurts in weight gain do not coincide with mini spurts in length gain even when considering lag times of up to 10 weeks. Short term changes of weight gain and lower leg length gain in healthy children show no temporal association.
年龄别身长被视为监测慢性营养缺乏长期影响的首选指标。我们假设体重的短期增加与小腿长度的增加相互关联。我们重新分析了34名年龄在2.9至15.9岁的健康德国儿童体重和小腿长度的每周测量数据之间的关联。这些数据是1988年最初发表的数据（Hermanussen等人，1988a）的一个子集。由于节假日和疾病的干扰，生长测量数据在时间上往往间隔不均，因此使用样条函数对体重和小腿长度的增加率进行了平滑处理。计算了体重增加量和小腿长度增加量的自相关函数和互相关函数。身高和体重的增加是脉动式的。自相关表明，小型生长突增以不规则的间隔出现。体重和小腿长度之间缺乏互相关，这表明即使考虑长达10周的延迟时间，体重增加的小型突增也与长度增加的小型突增不一致。健康儿童体重增加和小腿长度增加的短期变化没有时间上的关联。
