Kinanthropometry and body composition: A natural home for three-dimensional photonic scanning

Readers may notice a subtle difference to this issue of the Journal of Sports Sciences: the Kinanthropometry Section has become ‘‘Kinanthropometry and Body Composition’’. This is a deliberate attempt to broaden the appeal of the section as it may have been hitherto perceived, beyond anthropometric studies, into the realm of more varied and complex methods for assessing body composition that relate to performance and health. In their seminal historic paper on the origins and future of kinanthropometry, Beunen and Borms (1990) described kinanthropometry as a subject within the domains of human biology or physical anthropology, crediting the first use of the term to Ross and colleagues (Ross, Hebbelink, Van Gheluwe, & Lemmens, 1972). They further noted that many terms in science appear to have ‘‘a long history but a recent origin’’, elaborating themes that apply to most sections within the journal. However, in the intervening two decades, several other academic disciplines have emerged and developed, creating the possibility for redundancy or overlap in terminology, and the time is ripe for exploring this as we enter a new decade. With the endorsement of my colleagues in the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry, I propose contemporary definitions that seek to provide clarification and assist scientists in understanding the wider scope of the section. Kinanthropometry can be defined as ‘‘The academic discipline that involves the use of anthropometric measures in relation to other scientific parameters and/or thematic areas such as human movement, physiology or applied health sciences’’. Anthropometry can be described as ‘‘The scientific procedures and processes of acquiring surface anatomical dimensional measurements such as lengths, breadths, girths, and skinfolds of the human body by means of specialist equipment’’. In other words, kinanthropometry is a scientific discipline, and anthropometry is a toolbox and skill set. Why, then, do we need to include the term body composition in this section? Body composition is frequently misused as interchangeable with ‘‘fatness’’ but refers to ‘‘the chemical or physical components that collectively make up an organism’s mass, defined in a systematic way’’. In other words, it is a metric for categorizing the body into meaningful sub-units (which could include lipid, adipose tissue or any chemical element), which can involve any of 30 different methods. The rich medical, physiological, and nutritional literature using body composition methods has provided great insight as to the relationship between body constituents in health and disease. Some consider that body composition can be viewed a discipline in its own right, in which anthropometry is justly placed; however, at the Journal of Sports Sciences, it was felt necessary to alter the title of the section to reflect an increasing number of manuscripts reporting the use of another body composition method in addition to anthropometry. Thus, by embracing the discipline of kinanthropometry, the tools of anthropometry, and the metric of body composition applied to an exercising human, the section can include a greater range of scientific topics in line the current emphasis on interdisciplinary research. The emergence of three-dimensional (3D) scanning at the end of the twentieth century has greatly enhanced the prospects for contributing across many disciplines, and significantly this issue of the journal contains the first published account of a sporting group assessed by this method. Schranz’s group have quantified effect sizes for differences between lightweight and heavyweight rowers and the general population, crucially exposing differences in segmental volumes that would not have been possible using other methods. As a paper it represents a milestone for sports and exercise science, not only by greatly augmenting the available data on rowers, but by providing proof of the concept of 3D scanning as a viable method for profiling athletes at major competitions. Three-dimensional scanners were developed to assess body shape – largely for the clothing and automotive industries. Only more recently have they been applied to health-related applications, including obesity research (Figure 1). The approaches for scanning include the use of structured light and analysis using photogrammetry; millimetre wave technology using a linear array of radio waves, or Journal of Sports Sciences, March 2010; 28(5): 455–457