Lecture 7 - Overview of Anthropometric Assessment

Question 1

• measurement of the variations of the physical dimensions and the gross composition of the human body at different age levels and degrees of nutrition

Answer 1

Nutritional Anthropometry

Question 2

For Physical Dimension, under body mass:

Answer 2

• weight

Question 3

For Physical Dimension, under - skeletal growth:

Answer 3

• length/height
  
  • knee height
  • head circumference

Question 3

Body Composition, under body fat:

Answer 3

• skin fold measurements

Question 4

Body Composition, under FFM

Answer 4

• skeletal muscle
  
  • non-skeletal muscle
  • soft lean tissues
  • skeleton

Question 5

Give all Use of nutritional anthropometry (3)

Answer 5

• Detect protein-energy malnutrition and overnutrition in all age groups
• Evaluate progress of growth among infants, children, adolescents and pregnant women
• Monitor the effects of nutritional intervention on disease, trauma, surgery or malnutrition

Question 6

Advantages of anthropometric assessment (8)

Answer 6

• simple, safe, non-invasive
  
  • can be used at the bed side and applicable to large sample sizes
• inexpensive, portable, and durable equipment
  
  • can be made or purchased locally
• can be performed by unskilled personnel
  
  • may be secretaries without health background or that you can train a person with the job
• can be precise and accurate
  
  • provided that standardized techniques are used
• generate past long-term nutritional history
  
  • which cannot be obtained with equal confidence using the other techniques, results of anthro can only be the one to distinguish from acute and chronic malnutrition, this is bc the results here is long-term unlike 24 hr recall (dietary) which is recent
• can identify severity of malnutrition
  
  • the procedures can assist in the identification of mild to moderate malnutrition as well as severe states of malnutrition
• can evaluate secular changes
  
  • be used to evaluate nutritional status over time and from one generation to the next
• can be used for screening
  
  • be used to identify individuals at high risk for malnutrition

Question 7

Limitations of anthropometric assessment (3)

Answer 7

• relatively insensitive method
• Cannot detect disturbances in nutritional status over short periods of time or identify specific nutrient deficiencies
• Unable to distinguish disturbances in growth or body composition induced by nutrient deficiencies from imbalances in protein and energy intake
  
  • in metabolism, macro involved, sapat energy pero yung macro ay kulang kaya hindi maayos yung metabolism (does not go as planned)

Question 8

Sources of error in nutritional anthropometry

Answer 8

• random measurement errors
• systematic measurement errors
• alterations in the composition and physical properties of certain tissues
• Use of invalid assumptions in the derivation of body composition

Question 9

under random measurement errors:

Answer 9

• cause variation in a sample that can be expected to occur by chance;
  
  • reduce precision of measurements by increasing the variability about the mean;
  • produce measurements which are imprecise in an unpredictable way resulting in less certain conclusions;
  • may come from within or intra-examiner or between or inter-examiner errors

Question 10

under systematic measurement errors:

Answer 10

• errors that are the same or constant over all observations
  
  • reduce accuracy of the measurement

Question 11

under alterations in the composition and physical properties of certain tissues:

Answer 11

• may occur in both healthy and diseased participants resulting in inaccuracies in certain anthropometric measurements
  
  • Ex. tissue hydration with the menstrual cycle, compression of the skin due to repeated measures of skin fold thickness, mineralizations of the bone and changes in body water as a result of aging

Question 12

under Use of invalid assumptions in the derivation of body composition

Answer 12

• derived in anthropometric measurements especially in obese or elderly patients and those with protein energy malnutrition or certain disease states

Question 13

Common measurement errors in anthropometry (4)

Answer 13

• inadequate instrument
• restless child
• reading
• recording

Question 14

Problems sa field (5)

Answer 14

• no flat wall
• no flat ground - need to be balanced
• head board - accidentally fall to one’s head
• beliefs - does not want to be measured horizontally - believed to be for death
• collection of blood - does not want to agree rin