A child’s manner of walking can tell a doctor a lot about their health and development. But the transition from tottering toddler to strutting teen is not as universal as you might think.
Depending on where in the world a child grows up, their gait may mature in a slightly different way.
In South Africa, for instance, researchers have found elementary school-aged kids already show a mature angle of hip rotation when they walk. Yet in France, it takes kids until about age 12 to develop a similarly mature gait pattern.
A new study from Japan finds yet more subtle differences in the way we learn to walk like adults.
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Unlike children in South Africa, children in Japan did not show a significant change to their hip rotation movements as they aged.
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“Hence,” the authors of the new study write, “the gait kinematics and kinetics of Japanese children aged 6–12 years differ from those reported in children from other countries. Age-related changes in the cadence and step and stride lengths appear to be similar worldwide; however, the normalized values slightly differ from those in our study.”
