Interobserver reliability of skinfold measurements in infants and young children

Abstract

Interobserver reliabilities were determined for the triceps, biceps, subscapular, suprailiac, and abdominal skinfolds in 77 children, 9–24 months of age. Technical errors of measurement (replicate variances) and coefficients of variation were compared to data on 12–17‐year‐olds from the U.S. Health Examination Survey (HES) to 2.5–7‐year‐old Guatamalan children. Of the five skinfolds, the between‐observer variation was not significantly different from zero in four; in the case of the biceps fold, F‐ratio was significant at p < .01. Errors of measurement are less for these data than for the HES or Guatemalan studies. This difference is attributed to the larger means of the older children and youth, as well as to the greater error of measurement shown to exist for larger skinfolds.