Socioeconomic Differences in Body Composition of Hungarian University Students

Abstract

It is well known that growth and development are controlled by genetic and environmental factors. The genetic program of the human organism provides only the biological framework of body development, while the latter is realized by environmental factors determined mainly by socioeconomic backgrounds. The socioeconomic factors exert their influences on the body measurements through the development of a given society and through the position in the structure of the society of a given family where children are growing up, The results of studies on growth and development show that in the populations of the world there are differences in body measurements between children growing up in well-off and in poor families — even later, in the adult ages — except in countries where marked socioeconomic differences have disappeared (Walter, Fritz and Welker, 1975).