A Study on Age at Menarche of School Going Girls in Bangladesh

Abstract

The aim of this research is to study age at menarche of school going girls in Bangladesh. For this purpose, the data is acquired from Nilphamary Government Girls High School of the classes of five, six, seven and eight during1st June- 30 th June, 2008. In this study, it is to investigate the pattern of age at menarche of total respondents and the pattern of height, weight and body mass index by the age of the respondents in accordance with menarche and non-menarche. The age range of the respondents was between 10 to 14 years. Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis are employed in this paper. This study also displays the association of age at menarche with socio-demographic variables of respondents. It is realized from the association that early menarche for school going girl's height, weight, father income, body mass index, time spent by watching television and father educational qualification were highly significant but mother educational qualification, mother occupation, father occupation, number of siblings, order of birth, time spent by playing and mother time spent were insig- nificant. In logistic analysis, it was found that only height, weight and time spent by watching TV were significant which have positive effects on age at menarche.