engleski

Secular trend in adolescent´s height and weight in the last twenty years from Zagreb, Croatia

This study describes secular trends of the physical growth in Croatian adolescents over the period of two decades. The study is based on three comparable national surveys undertaken in 1990, 1997, and in 2010. The mean heights and weight at ages between 15 and 19 were estimated for three cohorts of boys and girls to identify secular changes in height and weight over the last two decades and impact of Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995). The height and weight of 406 boys and 399 girls was measured in 2010, and compared with 726 boys and 888 girls measured in 1990, and 563 boys and 532 girls measured in 1997. We assessed the statistical significance of One-way ANOVA and ANOVA post hoc Tukey HDS test for differences between groups. A trend of decline in height was present in all five female age groups. However, the differences were significant only for 15-year- olds, when comparing 1990 to 2010 survey (p=0.007). The total mean height in girls, over the 20-year-period, decreased by 17.4 mm (p<0.001). In contrast to that, boys´ height did not change in a 20-year’s period and may suggest a reduction in speed of the positive trends in growth. On the other hand, in all age groups in both, boys and girls an increase of weight has been noticed in 2010. This increase was statistically significant in the twenty-year period in boys aged 15-18 years, but not in ones 19 years old. In the girls aged 17-19, the increases in weight were statistically significant among the groups measured in 1997 and 2010. Taking into consideration broader socio-economic context, the decline in height detected in 1997 might be a result of the worsening of living conditions during and after the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995). However, regardless of economic stability established after the war, the mean age- at-menarche in 2010 declined in comparison to both 1990 and 1997, causing an earlier halt in the growth of long bones and, shorter stature as it’s a result of it. These results are in concordance with recent hypothesis (Dubois et al. 2012) that the influence of the environment on height is less evident in boys than in girls.

Secular trend; height; weight; BMI; impact of Croatian War of Independence

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