Evaluation of Children’s Anthropometric Measures in Rural and Urban Areas for Ergonomic Application

The prominent issue of the mismatches of children’s body dimensions with school furniture has made people realize the essential factors of providing ergonomic furniture. By evaluating rural and urban areas, school furniture can be designed for both areas based on their anthropometrics, thereby combating mismatches. This quantitative study focused on four regions in Malaysia. A total sample of 2,400 primary school children from seven to eleven years old from both rural and urban schools was evaluated. Six anthropometric aspects were measured: stature, subscapular height, shoulder breadth, hip width, buttock popliteal length, and popliteal height. The measurements were evaluated using SPSS, with which T-tests were performed, to evaluate the anthropometric differences between each province. Each region showed different results when its rural and urban areas were compared. This reveals that anthropometrics are different in certain areas, even when they are in the same country. The importance of knowing such matters will help to ease the sizing of products (such as furniture) based on location, hence, making ergonomic products possible.