Fluctuating body asymmetry in young Polish women in relation to childhood socioeconomic status

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse the relationship between childhood socioeconomic conditions and body asymmetry in young Polish women. The study measured fluctuating asymmetry (FA), which refers to small random deviations from perfect symmetry in bilaterally paired body structures. Data were obtained from 620 female students aged from 19 to 25 years recruited from Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. The research was carried out in the period from January 2016 to May 2017. A composite fluctuating asymmetry (cFA) of the women was calculated using five bilateral body traits. The lengths and widths of the women’s ears, lengths of their 2nd and 4th digits and wrist widths of the right and left sides of the body were measured twice using standard methodology. The following data were collected in a questionnaire: degree of urbanization of the woman’s place of residence during childhood, number of older siblings, parental education and woman’s dominant hand. The results showed a tendency for FA to fall with an increase in parental education, and to rise with an increase in number of older siblings. The level of FA was significantly lower in women from rural areas than in those from cities. The results of the study show that FA in early adulthood is significantly associated with socioeconomic status during childhood, and confirm that the level of FA in adulthood may be a good indicator of stress factors in the early stages of development.

Schizophrenia: Developmental Variability Interacts with Risk Factors to Cause the Disorder

“…Similar results have been found in studies of human subjects; traumatic experiences in mothers during pregnancy or low socio-economic status during childhood resulted in an increase in developmental instability. [90][91][92] In summary, studies conducted to date support the existence of genetic, and to a lesser extent environmental factors that influence plasticity, sensitivity of the organism to genetic variation, or developmental (in)stability. Such studies provide preliminary empirical arguments for the existence of factors that could modify VP and thus constitute VF.…”

“…Similar results have been found in studies of human subjects; traumatic experiences in mothers during pregnancy or low socio‐economic status during childhood resulted in an increase in developmental instability. [ 90–92 ]…”

Testing different3Dtechniques using geometric morphometrics: Implications for cranial fluctuating asymmetry in humans

“…Fluctuating asymmetry describes deviations from an organism's bilaterally symmetrical body plan (Palmer & Strobeck, 1986 ; Van Valen, 1962 ), and can be used as a biomarker of developmental instability and environmental stress (Beasley et al, 2013 ; McGrath et al, 2022 ; Møller & Thornhill, 1997 ; Van Dongen, 2006 ; Van Dongen & Gangestad, 2011 ). Fluctuating asymmetry has been studied in humans—both on modern and archeological populations and on the cranium and the post‐cranial skeleton (Bigoni et al, 2013 ; Chovalopoulou, Papageorgopoulou, & Bertsatos, 2017 ; DeLeon, 2007 ; Gawlikowska et al, 2007 ; Gawlikowska‐Sroka et al, 2017 ; Mopin et al, 2018 ; Zurawiecka et al, 2019 ). Studying fluctuating asymmetry can be difficult since it is generally a small biological signal and is, therefore, vulnerable to measuring error (Greene, 1984 ; Lundström, 1960 ; Palmer & Strobeck, 1986 ).…”

Parental education, health literacy and children’s adult body height

“…Among the many facets of persisting social inequality, those that shape human anthropometric dimensions have recently attracted much scholarly attention (Deaton, 2008;Batty et al, 2009;Zurawiecka et al, 2019). Adult body height is a highly heritable trait, but it has also been shown to be associated with early life environment across a set of developed and developing countries (Meyer & Selmar, 1999;Silventoinen et al, 1999;Pawlowski et al, 2000;Chen & Li, 2009).…”