The impact of urban residence on diet, physical activity patterns, anthropometry and the adrenal hormone DHEA and the significance of DHEA to the "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis: A case study of urban and rural school children in Samoa [microform]
- Bib ID:
- 3295561
- Format:
- Book and Microform
- Author:
- Rutledge, Stephanie A
- Description:
- 198 p.
- Summary:
-
This study conducted in the schools of urban Apia and rural Salailua of Samoa assessed (1) the impact of residence on diet, physical activity patterns, body composition and salivary dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) levels, and (2) the relevance of birth weight on body composition and salivary DHEA levels. Body composition variables included height, weight, body mass index (BMI), percent body fat, skinfold measurements and extremity versus trunk (central fat ratio) and upper versus lower trunk subcutaneous fat distribution. The comparisons by residence included a study population of 256 urban participants (143 females, 113 males) from Apia, the urban capital of Samoa, and 120 rural (85 females, 35 males) participants from Salailua, a rural village on the island of Savaii. The results show in the assessment of the "lifestyle" variables of diet and physical activity patterns the most pronounced differences in patterns of physical activity between the urban and rural cohort.
Urban students were less likely to engage in subsistence-related activities and more likely to use a motor vehicle for transportation to and from school. In dietary patterns considerable overlap occurred in foods consumed, but urban students in general consumed processed/imported foods with greater frequency than rural students. In body composition, urban students were taller and heavier, with higher levels of body fat, in general, and subcutaneous fat in particular, than rural students of the same gender and age group. Mean DHEA levels were also higher in urban students, which may reflect the higher levels of body fat relative to rural students. Analysis of body composition by birth weight found mean BMI, percent body fat and abdominal skinfolds increased in mean value relative to the normal and high birth weight with an increase in age group, such that the low birth weight group demonstrated the highest mean values of these variables in the 13 and older age cohort.
Mean DHEA levels show complex results by birth weight in this study. Median DHEA levels, however, show consistently higher values in the low birth weight cohort in females, whereas males show the lowest values in the high birth weight cohort.
- Notes:
-
- (UnM)AAI3114072
- Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 64-11, Section: A, page: 4112.
- Adviser: Ralph R. Garruto.
- Thesis (Ph.D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, 2003.
- Reproduction:
- Microfiche. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
- Subject:
- Other authors/contributors:
- State University of New York at Binghamton
- Copyright:
-
In Copyright
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Copyright status was determined using the following information:
- Material type:
- Literary Dramatic Musical
- Published status:
- Unpublished
- Creation date:
- 2003
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