Anthropometrics revisited.

This paper has discussed some of the anthropometric techniques currently used for assessing nutritional state. Most of the measurements are easy to perform and a large amount of reference information is available, and yet an accurate and clinically useful method for nutritional assessment (especially for the elderly) has yet to be achieved. At present the best compromise would appear to be the use of measurements of weight, height and skinfold thickness at several sites to estimate the individual's body fat (and hence estimate 'energy reserves') from regression equations, or in conjunction with a prediction of their usual percentile, from national surveys, to try and gauge losses or gains in fat. The estimation of 'degrees' of malnutrition is not recommended.