Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

hello
I wonder what is the average length of leg in children, teens, adults, both males and females?
what is the average height of individuals?
and how is the leg length related to individual height? or in other words what is the proportion of leg to height?
thanks alot

Hi Sondos,

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to your question. I'm sure that there is data on the length of legs in the literature, but I am not familiar with this topic at all. Did you change your science fair topic?

Donna Hardy

no I didn't I Finished mine , its for my friend science project, I appreciate your consider

Hi Sondos,

It might be better for your friend to start a new thread so some of the other experts can see the topic. I am going to be of very limited help on this topic.

This would be an interesting and unusual topic for a science project. I have looked for some data, and it is very difficult to find information on this topic from a scientific website. The Wikipedia website on femur includes the average length of the adult femur, but there's no information on children or teens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femur

What is the purpose of the project? Perhaps it would be possible to find scientific articles on the topic. Please let me know.

Donna Hardy

Hi,

I split the topic so that this question is in a new thread and, with any luck, some new experts will check it.

Here's a paper from the Netherlands about leg length, sitting height, and height in children and adults: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1720514/ . Hopefully that will get you started!

Hi,

Thanks to Melissa for finding the article. It is difficult to find references on this topic. I am thinking that this is a good topic for a science project, because there are not a lot of references. For some topics, there are hundreds of references, so it is difficult to learn everything and think of something unique to do. So this project is definitely original and worthwhile.

Please do let us know what the project is about and if you need any other advice for completing the project.

Donna Hardy

Hi there,

It seems that there is not a lot of information in the literature about this topic. However, doctors use average growth charts to monitor their patients' growth. You might try contacting a pediatrician's office to see if they can provide you with some of that information.

Hope that helps!

Heather