Uzma Ather, Farah Gul, Azka Saleem, Muhammad Saleem, Umar Saleem, Tanvir Ali Shirwany.
Relationship of Body Mass Index with Pubertal Stages and age at Menarche in Pakistani girls.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;12(3):903-7.

Aim: To determine the relationship of BMI, age at menarche and stages of puberty. Study design : It is a cross-sectional analytic study. Methods : One hundred and fifty two girls were selected from different schools in Lahore. The sample was divided into 10 groups, comprising approximately 15 girls in each age group with age range of 8.0 to 17.99 years. Their demographic data and anthropometric was collected to determine BMI. Age of menarche was obtained through a questionnaire. Stage of puberty was determined by inspection and palpation according to Tanner’s staging system. Data was entered into SPSS version 16 and analyzed. Spearman correlation test were applied to observe correlation between the variables. Results: There is strong positive correlation between BMI and pubertal stages, (rho = 0.734, and p=0.000). The mean age at menarche was 12.76+/-1.24 years. Pre menarche and post menarche BMI is (16.13+/-2.48 vs 20.22+/-3.53 kg/m 2). The percentages of menarcheal girls in underweight, normal weight and overweight girls were 34.62%, 49.51% and 73.91% and the mean age at menarche was 13.61+/-1.67, 12.88+/-1.06 and 11.96+/-1.15 years respectively (p< 0.002).Conclusion : There is strong positive correlation between BMI, and mean pubertal stages. This study indicates that high BMI leads to earlier start of puberty and low BMI thus leads to delayed onset of puberty and menarche.

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