Age at Menarche, Menstrual Patterns, Body Size and Nutritional Status of Semi-rural Adolescent Girls of Yamunanagar, Haryana

The present study analyzes age at menarche, menstrual characteristics, body traits and nutritional status on the basis of a cross-sectional data on120 semi-rural adolescent girls aged 13 to 18 year from Yamunanagar, Haryana. On the basis of retrospective method, mean age at menarche was 13.4 years with a standard deviation of 0.99 years. The menstrual flow period continued on an average for 4.43±1.4 days and mean interval between cycles was 27.88± 1.21days. F-ratios based on one-way ANOVA were significant for height, weight and age at menarche showing significant age differences among groups and not for menstrual flow days and mean interval between menstrual periods. Nutritional status was tested on the basis of body mass index (BMI) contrasted with CDC growth data percentiles and subjects were grouped into various BMI categories. One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that girls having BMI higher than 50 percentile of the CDC 2000 growth norms had lower age at menarche than those having BMI less than 50 percentile. The post-hoc Scheffe’s test to study multiple comparisons showed significant results for BMI only and insignificant for age at menarche. Family income was not significantly correlated with body height, weight and age at menarche in this sample.