Abstract

Objectives of study: • To study mean age at Menarche of studied population. • To study whatever nutritional status effects mean age at menarche. Design: This is a cross sectional study which is done on 1009 Adolescent girls who belong to Salboni block of district Paschim Medinipur of West Bengal, India. To study effect of nutrition on age at menarche, different anthropometric measurements are applied. Setting: Data was collected from adolescent health clinic named Anwesha Clinic which is under Salboni Rural hospital, West Medinipur. Participants: Participants are 10-19 years adolescent who are resident of Salboni (Rural) block, and belongs to agriculture based family, they are selected randomly for study. Major outcomes: Data are collected on basis of hypothesis, menacheal age, nutritional status of studied girls who came to know from research. Result: Among studied sample 896 girls had experienced menarche, their mean age at menarche is 11.88 years (1.23). At 10 mean height of premenarche girls is 145.88 cm, postmenarcheal girls is 146.33 cm), Body mass Index had increased progressively from 13 years to 19 years of age where overall increase was (1.89 kg/m2) from 10 to 19 years which is statistically significant with age (F=17.3, P<0.001), Percent body fat is statistically significant with Age (F=38.7, P<0.001). Conclusion: Nutritional status are better in Postmenarcheal girls than Premenarcheal girls, The study represents typical differential rates of positive change in different body composition measures after the attainment of menarche.

Keywords: Adolescent, Menarche, Nutritional status, Body mass index, Percent body fat