Skin fold-body weight correlations in Negro and white children of elementary school age

SUMMARY Correlations between body weight and skin-fold thicknesses at three body sites are reported for Negro and white children 6 through 13 years of age. The children were studied longitudinally over a 1-year period. In agreement with earlier observations, we found that skin folds and body weight are highly related. Correlations between gains and/or losses in subcutaneous fat and body weight over a 1-year period are lower than those between skin folds and body weight at each observation period. The magnitude of skin fold-weight correlations in Negro and white children is reasonably similar for the three skin-fold sites. This latter observation is in contrast to the recent results of Garn et al. (1).