Empirical Analysis Of Anthropometric Measurements (A Case Study Of School Of Nursing And Midwifery FMC, Umuahia)

ABSTRACT

 This work looked at five (5) anthropometric measurements which are height (HT), skin fold (SF), arm muscle circumference (AMC), mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) and weight (WT) in order to determine which are best in the assessment of students' nutritional status. The data were collected from school of Nursing and Midwifery FMC, Umuahia. Principal Component Analysis which is a data reduction approach was used to reduce the anthropometric measurements to fewer measurements. The study revealed that the first three principal components were retained since they accounted for nearly 80% of the total variation in the data. This further explains that the 1 1 _1'.fll - ----_1 c_ ---------------- neignt, sKrnlcnu anti anti muscle eireuHiieieiiee WhICH accounteu ior LJ.0 /0, 25.9% and 22.9% respectively of the total variance, were the major anthropometric measurements needed for the assessment of nutritional status. The study recommended these three retained measurements for the assessment of the nutritional status. This will help to reduce the time and cost that would have been incurred by making use of the whole anthropometric measurements A further extension of the work can be done by checking the relationship between these anthropometric measurements by the use of a Bipiot.