Anthropometry - Modern Anthropometry and Biometrics

Modern Anthropometry and Biometrics

Anthropometric studies today are conducted to investigate the evolutionary significance of differences in body proportion between populations whose ancestors lived in different environments. Human populations exhibit climatic variation patterns similar to those of other large-bodied mammals, following Bergmann's rule, which states that individuals in cold climates will tend to be larger than ones in warm climates, and Allen's rule, which states that individuals in cold climates will tend to have shorter, stubbier limbs than those in warm climates.

On a micro evolutionary level anthropologists use anthropometric variation to reconstruct small-scale population history. For instance John Relethford's studies of early 20th-century anthropometric data from Ireland show that the geographical patterning of body proportions still exhibits traces of the invasions by the English and Norse centuries ago.

Scientists working for private companies and government agencies conduct anthropometric studies to determine a range of sizes for clothing and other items. Measurements of the foot are used in the manufacture and sale of footwear: measurement devices may be used either to determine a retail shoe size directly (e.g. the Brannock Device) or to determine the detailed dimensions of the foot for custom manufacture (e.g. ALINEr).

The US Military has conducted over 40 anthropometric surveys of U.S. Military personnel between 1945 and 1988, including the 1988 Army Anthropometric Survey (ANSUR) of men and women with its 240 measures. Statistical data from these surveys encompasses over 75,000 individuals.

Today anthropometry can be performed with three-dimensional scanners. A global collaborative study to examine the uses of three-dimensional scanners for health care was launched in March 2007. The Body Benchmark Study will investigate the use of three-dimensional scanners to calculate volumes and segmental volumes of an individual body scan. The aim is to establish whether The Body Volume Index has the potential to be used as a long-term computer based anthropometric measurement for health care. In 2001 the UK conducted the largest sizing survey using scanners up to date. Since then several national surveys have followed in the UK's pioneering steps, notably SizeUSA, SizeMexico & Size Thailand, the latter still ongoing. Size UK showed that the nation had become taller and heavier but not as much as expected. Since 1951, when the last women's survey had taken place, the average weight for women had gone up from 62 to 65 kg.

Direct measurements involve examinations of brains from corpses, or more recently, imaging techniques such as MRI, which can be used on living persons. Such measurements is used research on neuroscience and intelligence. Brain volume data and other craniometric data is used in mainstream science to compare modern-day animal species, and to analyze the evolution of the human species in archeology. With the discovery that many blood proteins vary consistently among populations, followed by the discovery of the DNA code, the invention of the polymerase chain reaction that amplifies trace amounts of DNA, and the decoding of the human genome, phylogeographers largely switched away from craniofacial anthropometry whenever DNA is available.

Anthropometric measurements also have uses in medical anthropology and epidemiology, for example in helping to determine the relationship between various body measurements (height, weight, percentage body fat, etc.) and medical outcomes. Anthropometric measurements are frequently used to diagnose malnutrition in resource-poor clinical settings.

In art Yves Klein termed anthropometries his performance paintings where he covered nude women with paint, and used their bodies as paintbrushes.