SPORT WORKOUT AND PARTICIPATION ASSOCIATED MENSTRUAL PROBLEMS AMONG ADOLESCENT ATHLETES OF ALIGARH

Background: Menstruation and related problems are issues of great importance for adolescent athletes. The concern becomes more crucial when it comes to the sports participation of athletes. The social and cultural setup in India leaves very less space for adolescent athletes to talk freely about menstruation. This raises a great concern regarding menstruation from health perspective. Objectives: To study sport workout and participation associated menstrual problems among adolescent athletes. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire based survey study was carried out during open sports meet 2017 in Aligarh, India. A sample of 158 girl athletes participated in this study. Data was collected using a 23-item semi structured questionnaire. Data collection lasted for two weeks and analysis was done using descriptive statistics, percentages and proportions. Results: Showed that the mean age of menarche was 13.5 years. 37.19% had irregular menstrual cycle. 73.23% (20.11% severe and 53.12% mild) athletes had abdominal pain and cramping during menstruation. While, mere, 7.98% athletes seek any medical practitioner or OB-GYN about their menstruation problems. 56.97% athletes think that sports training and participation effect their menstrual periods. 49.78% reported that diet provided to them was not well balanced and 59.09% reported that imbalanced diet had caused many problems like that of irregular menstrual periods, dizziness, sleeping difficulties, mood swings, constipation and feelings of depression to them. Conclusion: The knowledge of the participants of this study about the menstruation and related problems was very weak and did not know the safe maintenance procedures. They also have the ill faith that sports participation hampers the menstrual periods. Besides this the significant weight loss could be due to training load and dietary imbalances. This seems to have had played major role in the irregularity of the menstrual cycles.