The current environmental and socio-economic living conditions are major causes of the deterioration of the population health. The physical development of children and adolescents permits to evaluate fleeting changes in the population. There was performed the evaluation of the physical development of 1664 schoolchildren in the Ulyanovsk region. Features of the physical development, the state of autonomic tone and cardiac activity of children and adolescents residing in areas with the intense anthropogenic impact testify to the exertion of adaptation mechanisms under the influence of environmental factors.