We studied the dorsal moire topographies of a group of 142 girls with an average age of 13.7 and another group of 113 girls with an average age of 16.4. Of the respective groups, 60 and 68 subjects were measured anthropometrically.They were photographed in a natural standing position, and 15% of the former group and 26% of the latter were excluded from the study beforehand because they had more than 7.5mm left-right dorsal depth difference.The Type II high-thoracic moire pattern was most frequent (85% and 86%) in each group. Neither left-right differences or age group differences were detected in the length, depth and angle measurements on the dorsal moire photographs.The angle between the posterior median line and the left/right prominent point on the back fit the Gaussian distribution. The girls with Type I or II thoracic moire pattern were obese as indicated by their skinfold thickness, Rohrer index, the body mass index, and circumferential measurements. Principal component analysis showed that general body thickness and back depth formed opposite clusters on PC I, dorsal length contrasts with dorsal angle on PC II, and general body length formed a cluster on PC III.

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