AbstractA semilongitudinal study of the growth of Hawaiian children from four cohorts was carried out with measurements taken at four consecutive annual visits. Each visit entailed an anthropometric battery, including skinfold measurements at six sites. Additionally, interviews with children and their families elicited information on socioeconomic status, other social conditions, and degree of identification with Hawaiian culture. Genealogies were completed to allow estimates of percentage of Polynesian ancestry (PPA) for the Hawaiian children, with estimates compressed into quartiles of PPA. A principal components analysis of the six skinfold measures for each child was carried out, deriving two components. Components relating to centrality of fat distribution were significantly higher among native Hawaiians than in non‐Hawaiians, and the components were significantly related to PPA in analyses of covariance for preadolescent children. The relationship between socioeconomic variables and amount of body fatness appears to be stronger than the relationship between these variables and fat distribution. The results suggest a relatively greater role for Polynesian hereditary influence on fat distribution than on quantity of fat among contemporary native Hawaiian children. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss,