Family composition and age at menarche: Findings from the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study
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RESEARCH
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Family composition and age at menarche: Findings from the international Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study Martin Steppan1,5* , Ross Whitehead3, Juliet McEachran4 and Candace Currie2
Abstract Background: Early menarche has been associated with father absence, stepfather presence and adverse health consequences in later life. This article assesses the association of different family compositions with the age at menarche. Pathways are explored which may explain any association between family characteristics and pubertal timing. Methods: Cross-sectional, international data on the age at menarche, family structure and covariates (age, psychosomatic complaints, media consumption, physical activity) were collected from the 2009–2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey. The sample focuses on 15-year old girls comprising 36,175 individuals across 40 countries in Europe and North America (N = 21,075 for age at menarche). The study examined the association of different family characteristics with age at menarche. Regression and path analyses were applied incorporating multilevel techniques to adjust for the nested nature of data within countries. Results: Living with mother (Cohen’s d = .12), father (d = .08), brothers (d = .04) and sisters (d = .06) are independently associated with later age at menarche. Living in a foster home (d = −.16), with ‘someone else’ (d = −.11), stepmother (d = −.10) or stepfather (d = −.06) was associated with earlier menarche. Path models show that up to 89% of these effects can be explained through lifestyle and psychological variables. Conclusions: Earlier menarche is reported amongst those with living conditions other than a family consisting of two biological parents. This can partly be explained by girls’ higher Body Mass Index in these families which is a biological determinant of early menarche. Lower physical activity and elevated psychosomatic complaints were also more often found in girls in these family environments. Keywords: Age at menarche, Psychological and psychosomatic problems, Family structure, Body mass index, Life history theory, Pubertal timing
Plain English summary The age of menarche is a reliable marker of pubertal timing in girls. Early age of menarche has been found to be associated with several negative psychological and physical health outcomes in later life, e.g. cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, obesity, gynaecological, obstetric, gastrointestinal, musculoskeletal, and neuro-cognitive disorders, early initiation of risk behaviours and teenage pregnancies. In * Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 School of Medicine, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK 5 Psychiatric University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
the literature, a so-called “stepfather-effect” has been described suggesting that girls who live with a stepfather hit puberty significantly earlier than girls
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