Comparison of Body Composition between Pre-Menarche and Post-Menarche Sabar Girls of Purulia District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Background It was known that menarche plays a significant role to change body composition during adolescence. And there is a paucity of information on body composition in relation to pre- and post-menarcheal status on comparative manner among the tribal adolescence girls of West Bengal, India. Objectives To assess the body composition and compare the relative distribution of fat between the pre- and post-menarcheal girls and to explore the impact of body composition on menarcheal status among the Sabar tribal adolescence girls of the Purulia district, West Bengal, India. Methods The present cross-sectional study was conducted from three different blocks of Purulia district during June 2019 to December 2019. A total of 65 adolescence girls were randomly selected from the aged between 10 to 18-years. Among them, 34 girls were post-menarche stage and 31 girls were pre-menarche stage. Anthropometric measurements (height, weight, triceps and sub-scapular skinfolds) were measured. Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient and Mann-Whitney U-test, Binary logistic regression were performed through SPSS version 25. Results It was depicted that significant differences were found in all anthropometric and body composition characteristics between the pre and post menarche state. The mean values of percent body fat (PBF), fat mass (FM), fat free mass (FFM), fat mass index (FMI) and fat free mass index (FFMI) in pre-menarche girls were 14.61%, 4.45 kg, 24.35 kg, 2.33 kg/m2 and 13.08 kg/m2, respectively. Similarly, the mean values of PBF, FM, FFM, FMI and FFMI in post-menarche girls were 20.37%, 8.07 kg, 31.00 kg, 3.70 kg/m2 and 14.29 kg/m2, respectively. The results of Spearman correlation coefficients (r) showed that the body composition measures were significantly correlated with the anthropometric variables except FFM and FFMI among the post-menarche girls. Menarcheal status of the Sabar tribal adolescent girls of Purulia district was pretentious of PBF and FFM. Conclusion The body composition characteristics were significantly different between pre- and post-menarche-state. So, further study in larger augmentation is required to validate the present findings.