The study was conducted on Punjabi Arora girls (n=159) and their mothers to see the phenomenon of secular trend in stature and age at menarche. An increase in stature and decrease in age at menarche was reported when the data of daughters was compared with that of their mothers thereby indicating secular trend in these two parameters. Better living conditions, improved nutrition and medical facilities, changes in environmental and socio-economic factors may account for increase in stature and early biological maturation

Geeta Khanna

Satwanti Kapoor

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Coll. Antropol. 28 (2004) 2: 571–575UDC 572.087:618.172Original scientific paperSecular Trend in Stature and Age atMenarche Among Punjabi ArorasResiding in New Delhi, IndiaGeeta Khanna and Satwanti KapoorDepartment of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi, IndiaA B S T R A C TThe study was conducted on Punjabi Arora girls (n=159) and their mothers to see thephenomenon of secular trend in stature and age at menarche. An increase in statureand decrease in age at menarche was reported when the data of daughters was compa-red with that of their mothers thereby indicating secular trend in these two parameters.Better living conditions, improved nutrition and medical facilities, changes in environ-mental and socio-economic factors may account for increase in stature and early biolog-ical maturation.Key words: secular trend, menarche, maturation, IndiaIntroductionIt has been noted that the average ageat menarche is gradually going down1. Inother words girls are having the onset ofmenstruation at earlier age or they aresexually maturing earlier. In Sweden du-ring the last 50 years, the average ratewas 10 days per annum, in Japan it wasone year in a period of 8 years2, in India adecrease of 5–7 days per annum was ob-served in Bengali Hindu girls.3 Earliersexual maturation of girls has also beendocumented by Cameron4 among Londongirls. In Northern and Eastern Europethe trend in menarche age has stopped5,menarcheal age has fallen steeply but isstable at around 13 years and may be ris-ing again. There is variability for age atmenarche between women across differ-ent countries or across different ethnicgroups6. Thomas et al.7 suggested age atmenarche to be mainly determined by ex-trinsic factors such as adult illiteracyrate and vegetable calorie consumption,their results revealed that age at menar-che reflects trend in energy balance. The-re are several other factors, which influ-ence the menarcheal age such as geneticparameters8, health and life style9, so-571Received for publication January 13, 2003cio-economic conditions10, nutritional sta-tus11, seasonality12, physical activity13, andaltitude level1,14.The other important variable that ex-hibited a change in its magnitude overyears is stature or body height. By combi-ning the above-mentioned parameters, itcan be said that children are growing tal-ler and maturing earlier over the years.Ford15 studied growth in height of tensiblings from a English family. He foundthe son grew 5% faster before adolescenceand matured a year earlier than the fat-her. The acceleration or retardation ofgrowth and maturation as indicated bychanges in height, weight or other variab-les over time is known as secular trend.The secular increase in stature is well do-cumented in the USA16; nearly all Euro-pean countries17,18, Japan19, USSR20,Greece21, Madhavan et al.22 also reporteda secular increase in height and weight inIndia. Kapoor and Kapoor23 reported a se-cular trend in stature among high altitu-de populations of Rang Bhotias and Rajisliving in Himalayas. A secular trend inbirth length has been observed in newbo-rn babies also.24 Schmidt et al.24 noticedrising trends in height in 11 Europeancountries, rates of 30 mm / decade havebeen achieved in Eastern Europe and Ja-pan26.This secular trend has generally beenattributed to decline in the frequency ofillness, improvement in hygienic andhousing condition, better nutrition, bet-ter health care facilities, etc. In most ofthe industrialized countries this trendhas however stopped but in developingcountries due to continuous improvementof living standards, nutrition and healthfacilities, the secular trend in various bio-logical parameters is still observed.One of the great advantage of measur-ing parent and children is that the com-parison of body parameter and sexualmaturation indices can easily reveal thepresence or absence of secular change. Inthe population under study the life stylehas changed over the years with higherliteracy and better nutritional status, wo-men have become more conscious aboutthe health aspect of their families. Moreand more women are taking employmentto supplement the family income. Use ofcontraceptives, age at marriage and thenumber of children are more of concernnow days. The senior author belongs tothe same community and has observedchanges hence the population selection.Materials and MethodsThe present study has been conductedon 159 girls and their mothers so as to seethe presence or absence of secular trendin stature and age at menarche. All thegirls were 16 years of age, decimal age ca-lendar of Tanner was used to calculatetheir age and girls between 15.500 to16.499 were considered to be of 16 years.All the girls had experienced menarcheand were in senior secondary school stu-dying in 9th to 11th standard wherefromtheir mothers were called or approached,interviewed and measured. The staturewas measured following procedural de-tails and precautions of Weiner and Lou-rie27. The annual per capita income of thesubjects was Rs. 1000.00 to Rs. 4500.00per month which is low as per the census.The age of mothers ranged from 36 to 45years with a mean of 40.5 years. Fortypercent of mothers were housewives andthe rest of them worked as housemaid orcasual worker in factories. Informationon age at menarche was taken for moth-ers as well as the concerned daughters.All the daughters could recall their exactage of onset of first menstruation. In caseof mothers it was a little difficult. Recal-led age at menarche is very much inaccu-rate28. Koo and Rohan29 found that shor-t-term recall of age at menarche werequite accurate where as lower accuracy572G. Khanna et al.: Secular Trend in India, Coll. Antropol. 28 (2004) 2: 571–575was observed with longer interval of recall.Livson and McNeill30 found a correlationcoefficient of 0.75 between the recalleddate and the actual one. Thus mothersmay not be reporting the age correctlybut chances of making the mistake arevery few because 80% could recall the ageat onset of their menstruation with thehelp of class in which they were studying,particular festival or other importanthappenings, in relation to age at marria-ge and/ or age at first conception. Theseare the social events where significance isattached to correct reporting. Mean ofstature and age at menarche was compu-ted. To know the significance of the differ-ence for stature and age at menarche be-tween mother and their daughters, un-paired t-test was applied31.ResultsTable 1 displays a comparative accountof mean values and standard deviationsof stature and age at menarche in moth-ers and their daughters.It has been observed that the daugh-ters showed a significantly higher meanvalue for stature (X = –154.8 cm, SD =±4.78 cm) than their mothers (X = 149.5cm, SD= ±4.37 cm). The increase in statu-re between the generations was 5.3 cm. Itwas found that the difference between sta-ture of mothers and their daughters wasstatistical significant (t = 3.479, p < 0.01).The mean age at menarche of daugh-ters was 12.8 years and of mothers it was13.3 years. The difference between themean values of age at menarche of moth-ers and their daughters was found to be0.5 years. The daughters showed earlymenarche. It was noted that the differen-ce between the age at menarche of themothers and their daughters was statisti-cally significant (t = 3.535, p<0.001).DiscussionOne of the advantages of studying twogenerations for body measurements andbiological maturation is to observe anysignificant increase or decrease in a givenparameter. It could be due to the fact thatdespite the genetic continuity in parentsand their children, the environmentalfactors under which they grew up, arequite different. It is a well-known factthat each genotype for its expression isdependent on environmental factors.It was observed that the stature ofdaughters was significantly more andtheir age at menarche was significantlylower than their mothers. In Japan andIndia a decrease of 5–10 days per annumin the age at menarche was also reportedby Matsumoto et al.2 and Sarkar andRoychaudhury32 respectively. So the newgeneration is not only getting taller but isalso maturing earlier. This trend, howe-ver, was observed in developed countriesmuch earlier33 and now has been repor-ted to have stopped there4,34.Kapoor and Kapoor23 showed a positi-ve secular trend for height in high altitu-573G. Khanna et al.: Secular Trend in India, Coll. Antropol. 28 (2004) 2: 571–575TABLE 1SECULAR TREND IN STATURE AND AGE AT MENARCHESubjects Variable MothersX ± SDDaughtersX ± SDDifference tMother : Daughter Stature (cm) 149.5 ± 4.37 154.8 ± 4.78 5.3 3.479**Mother : Daughter Age at menarche(2 yrs)13.3 ± 1.36 12.8 ± 1.04 0.5 3.535***** p < 0.01 *** p < 0.001de Himalayan populations. The seculartrend was due to improved medical facili-ties and environmental conditions overthe last three decades. According to themincrease in stature and early biologicalmaturation confirmed the genetic predis-position in a population. Kapoor et al.24displayed increase in birth length over adecade in infants belonging to Punjabi fa-milies which indicated that a secular trendtowards larger size existed even at birth.This change has been attributed to betterliving conditions and medical facilities.Durnin and Weir35 explained the diffe-rence in stature of parents and their chil-dren due to better nutrition in latter andshrinkage in stature in old age (parents).Madhavan et al.22 interpreted the greaterheight in younger generation indicativeof better growth and the standards of rec-ruitment to the jobs could also be partlyresponsible for that trend. Blanksby etal.36 explained secular trend in Australiareasons being higher general standard ofliving in younger generation as it was co-ming out of economic depression.As the age of mothers was less than 50years in the present study, the age rela-ted compression in intervertebral discsand a consequent decrease in stature isruled out. These observations are in linewith those of Susanne37.Kaur and Singh38 reported highermean values of stature in sons and daug-hters as compared to fathers and mothersrespectively. Kapoor and Kapoor23 alsoobserved a higher mean value for staturein daughters as compared to their mothe-rs indicating secular trend towards in-crease in height.Genetic, environmental and socio-eco-nomic factors influence stature, bodyweight and age at menarche39,40. As a re-sult, changes of environmental and socio-economic factors have resulted in a prog-ressive decreases in age at menarche andan increase in stature21.In the present study an increase instature and decrease in age at menarchewas reported when daughters were com-pared with their mothers thereby indicat-ing the presence of secular trend in thePunjabi Arora females. The urban Punja-bi Arora population has undergone a sig-nificant social change over the year withfemales getting better education; there isa decrease in gender bias and improve-ment in living conditions. Females fromlower and lower middle class families ha-ve started earning now, adding to theirfamily income and it has improved theirsocioeconomic status. Over the years mo-re and more females go to school. The lite-racy rate of women in Delhi is now 75%according to census in 2001, which was66.9% in 1991. Education brings moreawareness about self and family’s health.The grandmothers of the present girlswere housewives and had early marria-ges. The gender bias in food distributionis less in today’s generation. Thus, withthe improvement in living conditions, thegenetic potentials have been expressedmore than in the parental generation.574G. Khanna et al.: Secular Trend in India, Coll. Antropol. 28 (2004) 2: 571–575R E F E R E N C E S1. KAPOOR, A. K., S. KAPOOR, Int. J. 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KapoorDepartment of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, Indiae-mail: khannageeta@rediffmail.comSEKULARNI TREND U VISINI TIJELA I DOBI MENARHE KOD PUNJABIARORA POPULACIJE NASTANJENE U NEW DELIJU, INDIJAS A @ E T A KStudija je provedena kod Punjabi Arora djevoj~ica (n=159) i njihovih majki kako bise vidio je li prisutan fenomen sekularnog trenda u visini tijela i dobi menarhe. Kadasu podaci k}erki uspore|eni s podacima njihovih majki utvr|en je porast u visini tijelai pad u dobi menarhe, {to upu}uje na prisustvo sekularnog trenda u ova dva paramet-ra. Bolji uvjeti `ivota, pobolj{ana prehrana i medicinske usluge, promjene u okoli{u isocio-ekonomski ~imbenici mogu se ubrojiti me|u ~imbenike koji su zna~ajan za porastu tjelesnoj visini i ranom nastupu biolo{ke zrelosti.575G. Khanna et al.: Secular Trend in India, Coll. Antropol. 28 (2004) 2: 571–575MONDON, Ann. Hum. Biol., 24 (1997) 521. — 12.BOLDSEN, J. L., J. Bios. Sci., 24 (1992) 167. — 13.MALINA, R. M., Ann. Hum. 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Secular Trend in Stature and Age at Menarche Among Punjabi Aroras Residing in New Delhi, India

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