Resumen

BETANCOURT LEON, Hamlet; ARECHIGA VIRAMONTES, Julieta; RAMIREZ GARCIA, Carlos Manuel  y  DIAZ SANCHEZ, Maria Elena. Determination of the body weight for stature of ballet and modern & folkloric dancers from Cuba. An Venez Nutr [online]. 2009, vol.22, n.2, pp.69-75. ISSN 0798-0752.

In order to assess qualitatively the fatness-slenderness of ballet dancers in an holistic volumetric classification of their figures and define the morphological linearity, a value of body weight for stature is quantitatively related to the empirical classification of morphological linearity of dancers. The purpose of this research is to compare the relations of body weight for stature between dancer groups of ballet and modern & folkloric dance (MFD). Dancers of the best professional companies and medium level schools of ballet and MFD from Cuba were studied anthropometrically. The body weight and stature were measured. The Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated in order to determine the relation of body weight for stature. The Student t- test for independent sample was applied to measure the differences between the types of dancers. There were significant differences in BMI values between ballet professional dancers in both sexes, and MFD. The female student of ballet showed lower values of IMC than MFD students; while the comparison between male students registered statistical similarities. The BMI average of female ballet dancers was in a range classified as low body weight (< 18.5 kg/m²) by the Word Health Organization. The BMI values made it possible to distinguish the morphological linearity for both females and males of the professional level between ballet dancers and folkloric dancers and female dancers of the student level.

Palabras clave : Anthropometry; kinanthropometry; Body Mass Index; body composition.