Adiposity in Menstruating and Non-Menstruating School Girls of Punjab

Growth refers to a positive change in size, often over a period of time. Human height or stature is the distance from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head in the human body, standing erect. The term body weight is used colloquially and in the biological and medical sciences to refer to a person-s mass or weight. Adiposity is the medical term for obesity and is used to describe unhealthy body weight. The Body Mass Index is a standard tool often used to calculate whether one possesses a healthy body weight for his or her stature. Menarche is the first menstrual period. It is often considered as the central event of female puberty as it signals the possibility of fertility. The present cross-sectional study was carried out on 349 girls (179 menstruating, 170 non-menstruating girls) in the age range of 10 to 15 years and residing in Patiala district of Punjab. The aim of the study was to access body fat distribution on the basis of adiposity in menstruating and non-menstruating school girls. Out of total sample, the menstruating girls had large values of Brachial adipo-muscular ratio, Femoral adipo - muscular ratio and Mean of the brachial and femoral adipo muscular ratio at the age of 11.5 years than non-menstruating girls. On the basis of Body Mass Index, 90 non-menstruating girls were underweight, 69 had normal weight and 5 had overweight. In menstruating girls 86 were underweight, 83 had normal weight and 5 had overweight. No one girl in menstruating and non-menstruating group was in the category of obese. The median age at menarche was 13.3 1.2 years