GROWTH DIFFERENTIATION DURING PRE-ADOLESCENCE AMONG THE MARIA OF CHHATTISGARH, INDIA: A MULTIVARIATE DISTANCE ANALYSIS

The Maria tribal children (6-12 years) were studied to examine the pre-adolescent growth differentiation. Altogether 445 children (boys:222; girls:223) were measured for stature, weight, head length, head breadth, bizygomatic breadth, nasal height, nasal breadth, morphological facial height, upper facial height, bigonial breadth and least frontal breadth. In order to find out the changes during growth period multivariate distance analysis was performed putting together all measurements. Findings of MMD, CPG, CSG and t-D showed that a sharp pre-adolescent growth spurt occurred between 11-12 years among the boys and 8-9 years among the girls. Pre-adolescent growth spurt thus occurred much earlier among the boys than the girls.