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more extensive than in other similar studies. It is good to have the descriptive data and results of specific analyses under one cover. The book will be of value to those interested in youth sports and in talent identification and prediction of performance. The results highlight the limited utility of the prediction process in childhood and youth for the two sports considered.

ROBERT M. MALINA Department of Physical Education and Exercise Science Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan

The Amsterdam Growth Study: A Longitudinal Analysis of Health, Fitness, and Lifestyle. Edited by Han C.G. Kernper. ix + 278 pp. Champaign: Human Kinetics. 1995. $26.00 (paper).

The Amsterdam Growth Study is a mixed longitudinal study of growth, body composi- tion, physical fitness, psychosocial and per- sonality changes over a 15-year period (1977-1991). The children were 13-15 years old at outset and were measured every three months for four years, 1977-1980. Then the subjects were revisited twice as young adults, once in 1985 (average age 21) and again in 1991 (average age 27). This longitu- dinal study then explores the changes that occur from later adolescence to young adult- hood. This is of some interest since im- portant changes occur in body composition and body habitus in the third decade of life especially as regards development of risk for chronic disease in later life.

The book is in four parts. The first de- scribes sampling and methods; the second descriptive results of longitudinal analysis of physical growth, fitness and personality; the third focuses on lifestyle changes over the time period, including nutritional his- tory and habitual physical activity; the last section deals with a number of health issues: physical fitness and physical activity; sports injuries; lifestyle influences on cardiovascu- lar health (blood pressure, lung function, and total and HDL cholesterol were mea- sured at all periods); and bone mineral den- sity and calcium intake. It is of interest to note the study measured psychosocial re- sponses to stress and includes questions on physical and mental health, which, however,

were collected only on the adult samples. The sample was school-based and not in- tended to be representative of the Nether- lands or of Amsterdam, and measurements were taken on the school children in a mobile examination unit.

The longitudinal analysis reveals changes as expected in a sample from an urban soci- ety: body fat tends to increase and physical activity decrease from 17 to 27 years of age. The sample, however, is not particularly obese by age 27. Alcohol consumption in men is related to greater body fat, but not in women. However, alcohol consumption is also related to lower cholesterol levels in both sexes. Personality factors seem to re- main stable over the time period and are not correlated in a consistent way with physio- logic measures. Increasing energy intake was unrelated to skinfold thickness or total cholesterol over the period of investigation. Identifiable over time were components re- lated to stress (type A behavior, for example), coping and health complaints, but these had no association with cardiovascular risk vari- ables. Body fat and smoking seemed to be the major predictors of cardiovascular status at age 27.

What has this study shown us? One thing is that longitudinal data are very hard to organize and analyze. The authors have stressed what one would expect: time trends in the variables, gender differences in these, correlated changes in risk factors, and they have sought variables that influence health outcomes in the long run. Like many longitu- dinal studies, not all of the variables were measured at all time periods. This was true for coping, stress, and overall health data. This study is pretty typical of databases which emphasize biological measurement: physical and physiological measurements are the outcome variables which are pre- sumed to be affected by diet and exercise. This study also included “personality.” How- ever, why are people in Western society so obese? For one thing dieting and exercise fads are more likely a cause of obesity than a cure because they provide perplexed waist expanders with a scientifically sanctioned and false sense of control (Foreyt and Good- rick, 1992). I think the researchers are on the right track when they look to coping with stress: some people cope by eating. If they happen to be metabolically predisposed to turn that into fat, presto!

Not all stresses are “stresses” to all people.

BOOK REVIEWS 91

Clearly some regard stress as challenges and such folks are hardy both mentally and phys- ically. These attitudinal differences are de- veloped through the kinds of stages de- scribed by Eric Erickson and others during growth. The Amsterdam study is not without its conclusions and insights, particularly in the area of sports injuries and bone density in which they show activity and diet (in boys at least) to play a role. At one point the au- thors conclude that no associations are ap- parent between psychological and physiolog- ical variables, hence no evidence for mind- body interactions. When referring to mea- sures of personality, I would suggest that “personality” is not the mind. The mind is that which thinks, feels, believes, decides, conjures judgements, and gives meaning to life. It is that part of us that is carrying on an active conversation with life, mostly unconsciously, and it is reflected in our re- sponses to the ups and downs of living. The measure of the mind is closer to the stress and coping responses that are evaluated only in the adult phase of the study. The authors should be encouraged to take a deeper look at stress and coping perhaps retrospectively, and attempt to assess behavioral constructs like quality of attachment in infancy (Hazen and Shaver, 1990), personal beliefs and emo- tional maturity in their subjects, to provide further insights into the puzzles of addictive eatinglsmoking and obesity as precursors to cardiovascular problems and other health concerns of later life.

LITERATURE CITED Foreyt JP, Goodrick GK (1992) Living Without Dieting.

Houston: Harrison Publishing. Hazen G, Shaver P (1990) Love and Work: An attach-

ment theoretical perspective. J . Pers. SOC. Psych. 59:270-280.

WILLIAM H. MUELLER University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center School of Public Health Houston, Texas

Anthropomefry: The Individual and the Popula- tion. Edited by S.J. Ulijaszek and C.G.N. Mascie-Taylor. xiii + 213 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press 1994. $54.95 (cloth).

This collection of twelve papers by thirteen British and American authors is the 14th

volume in the excellent series Cambridge Studies in Biological Anthropology. Most of the papers were originally presented in a workshop held at the University of Cam- bridge. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in such diverse ar- eas as human biology, biological anthropol- ogy, nutrition, sports medicine, ergonomics, orthopedics, and pediatrics. Two areas of an- thropometric application that are not ad- dressed in this volume are engineering (hu- man factors) in nonmilitary contexts and forensics.

Gabriel Lasker opens with a brief history of anthropometric studies dating to Renais- sance artists and proceeding to the estab- lishment of such measurements and ratios as the cephalic index and conventions such as the Frankfurt plane. Historical as well as contemporary themes include standardiza- tion of techniques and measurements; func- tional interpretations of the variability of body size and shape; and the causes and con- sequences of morphological variability (ie., human adaptability studies).

P.H. Dangerfield discusses normal and pathologic asymmetry during growth and the skeletal abnormalities associated with a number of clinical entities (e.g., scoliosis, fractures, nephroblastoma). He has devel- oped a new computerized imaging system that produces contour maps and three-di- mensional reconstructions that are useful in measuring asymmetry.

The next three chapters by S.J. Ulijaszek and J.A. Lourie, C.G.N. Mascie-Taylor, and T.J. Cole review issues of measurement and put forth references for maximum accept- able intra- and interobserver measurement error. They compute the technical error of measurement (TEM) and present reliability estimates for a variety of measurements for children and adults. Cole discusses the strengths and weaknesses of conventional growth charts and then suggests two new approaches. Underlying the conditional height velocity (CHV) chart is the regression of height-next-year on height-now. The im- portant property of CHV is that the expected values are unrelated to current height. That is, both tall and short children can be plotted without bias and with compensation for the “regression to the mean” phenomenon (p.89). The second innovation is to chart together the CHV and the height distance. The height axis is scaled at each age to ensure that the CHV is uncorrelated with height distance.