Can socioeconomic factors account for ?atypical? correlations between timing, peak velocity, and intensity of adolescent growth in Taiwanese girls?

Abstract

This study uses longitudinal height records of girls in two urban and one rural area in Taiwan. Individual height records were modeled with the Preece‐Baines Model 1 (PB1) function to test two related hypotheses: 1) Taiwanese students who experienced a relatively stable, affluent growth environment from an early age, as judged from parental education and stability of residence type, will have a pattern of correlations for the timing and intensity of the growth spurt similar to those of European and American females; and 2) those students whose parents gained the wherewithal to move from single‐story to multi‐story dwellings while they were in primary school will have the most atypical patterns. The extent to which these and other sociodemographic factors influence pubertal spurt velocities and increments of adolescent growth were explored as well using multiple regression analyses. Results support the view that rapid socioeconomic change in Taiwan influenced the relationship between the timing and intensity of adolescent growth in stature. Children in the more stable environments in both urban areas had patterns of correlations typical of population samples from developed countries. The most atypical correlations in both areas were found among those who likely experienced the greatest improvement in socioeconomic status during primary school. These represent positive values previously unreported in the literature. Differences in amounts of growth, though in accord with these patterns, were quite small. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:102–117, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.

Serum IGF-1, IGFBP-3 and their ratio: Potential biochemical growth maturity indicators

“…Although the sequence of pubertal changes in adolescence is predictable, the timing of puberty is variable. Variations in pubertal timing depend on genetic and environmental factors [31]. In addition, secular trend appears to influence the physiological range in the timing of pubertal onset [32].…”

Associations between height, body mass, and frequency of decayed, extracted, and filled deciduous teeth among two cohorts of Taiwanese first graders

“…Two important premises, evaluated as part of the study, were that synergisms between under-nutrition and disease influenced the distribution of heights and BMI of first-graders to a significant extent in the less affluent Song Shan community, but very little among those in the more affluent setting. Although information on participants' dietary intakes and disease histories were not available, significant differences in the cost of housing, parental education levels, occupations, numbers of siblings, and growth parameters of other children in these two areas provided a basis for these assumptions initially (Floyd, 1998(Floyd, , 2000.…”

Body Height and Socioeconomic Status of Females at Different Life Stages

“…A significant difference in the mean age at menarche between socioeconomic groups was noted in the surveyed group. However, the differences in stature increments in childhood and adolescence between those groups were very slight and statistically insignificant (Floyd, 2000). Still, despite the significant differences in age at menarche between socioeconomic groups, the increases in body height between the ages of 7 and 14 years, and 7 and 16, 17, 18 years, were similar in children from families of lower SES and families of high SES.…”

“…Many studies have shown that children from families of low socioeconomic status begin puberty at a late age, and reach each stage of development at an older age than children from families of high socioeconomic status (Obeidallah et al, 2000;Olszewska & Łaska-Mierzejewska, 2008;James-Todd et al, 2010). This may be due to different living conditions (Bogin et al, 1990;Floyd, 2000). Girls from families of low socioeconomic status had their first menstruation at an older age than their peers from families of high status.…”