Use of Lower Limb Measurements in Reconstructing Stature among Shia Muslims

The present study aims to reconstruct stature among male and female Shia Muslims of Delhi using lower limb dimensions. To this aim the stature, femur length, tibial length, fibular length, foot length and foot breadth were recorded on each subject using the standard measurement techniques recommended by Martin and Saller 1 The data is composed of 1011 Shia Muslims (503 males and 508 females) within the age range of 20-40 years. Multiplication factors (M.Fs) and linear regression equations for stature estimation were produced using the above mentioned variables. Analysis of data reveals that the Shia males are taller than the Shia females. The sex differences have been observed to be highly significant. Analysis of the study reveals that tibial length among males exhibits the overall highest value of correlation with stature (r = 0.765) and lowest value of standard error of estimate while among females femur length exhibits the highest value of correlation (r = 0.742) with stature. However foot breadth exhibits the least correlation with stature in case of both males and females. The study highlights that the tibial length among males and femur length among female provides the best estimate of stature. However, the estimated stature may not be quite reliable using foot breadth among both males and females as it exhibits the lowest correlation with stature. Analysis of data clearly indicates that the dependability in the predicted stature would be better on using linear regression equations for any of these body dimensions as compared to the use of M.Fs for this purpose.