LATENT DIMENSIONS OF MORPHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

Morphological characteristics are the biological and physiological basis that generates the manifestation of anthropometric measures based on which we define the growth and development and state of nourishment of children. The aim of the study was to check the state of nourishment of children from three different kindergartens on the territory of the capital city of the Republic of Serbia, and to determine latent dimensions based on the collected anthropometric measurements and define their morphological structure. The sample included a total of 211 children aged 6 to 7. As a sample of measuring instruments and according to the assumption that the morphological model at this age was two-dimensional, anthropometric measures were used to estimate the longitudinal dimensionality of the skeleton, volume and mass and subcutaneous adipose tissue according to (Bala, & Popović, 2008). The results suggest that in all three groups of respondents two important major components were isolated, which, after rotation to a better parsimony position, gave a clearer structure composed of two isolated factors: Volume and subcutaneous fat factor and Longitudinal dimensionality and body weight factor. There was no significant correlation between isolated factors. Findings indicate that children are in a normal state of nourishment, but based on isolated factors they also indicate that the growth and development of children do not follow a linear trend and that anthropometric measures still dominate the assessment of soft tissue, hence the structure of morphological dimensions at this age can be defined as Soft tissue factor. It is believed that more intense bone growth in length will be the next stage that will occur. The authors believe that greater differences and variables regarding the state of nutrition and determining the morphological structure should be expected in one year in the pre-puberty period.