Leg length, proportion, health and beauty: a review

摘要

Decomposing stature into its major components is proving to be a useful strategyto assess the antecedents of disease, morbidity and death in adulthood. Human leg length(foot + tibia + femur), sitting height (trunk length + head length) and their proportions (forexample the relative leg length in proportion to stature, and the sitting height ratio [sittingheight/stature x 1001, among others) are used as epidemiological markers of risk for over-weight (fatness), coronary heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers. There is also wide sup-port for the use of relative leg length as an indicator of the quality of the environment forgrowth during infancy, childhood and the juvenile years of development. Human beings fol-low a cephalo-caudal gradient of growth, the pattern of growth common to all mammals. Aspecial feature of the human pattern is that between birth and puberty the legs grow relativelyfaster than other post-cranial body segments. For groups of children and youth, short staturedue to relatively short legs (i.e. a high sitting height ratio) is generally a marker of an adverseenvironment. The development of human body proportions is the product of environmentalx genomic interactions, although few if any specific genes are known. The short staturehomeobox-containing gene (SHOX) is the first genomic region that may be relevant tohuman body proportions. For example, one of the SHOX related disorders is Turner syn-drome. However, in most cases research has been showing that environment is a more power-ful force to shape leg length and body proportions than genes. Leg length and proportion areimportant in the perception of human beauty, which is often considered a sign of health andfertility. There are a variety of cosmetic, fashion, and surgical interventions to enhance per-ceived or actual leg length.