Maturação sexual precoce e o excesso de peso em adolescentes brasileiros

Abstract

Introduction: Excess weight has become one of the major health problems of the world population. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO) more than 1.9 billion adults are overweight. There is a positive relationship between overweight and early maturation in adolescents. Objective: To investigate the association of early sexual maturation and overweight in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years who attend schools in Brazilian cities. Method: Cross-sectional study with data from the Study of Cardiovascular Risks in Adolescents (ERICA). Sexual maturation was evaluated according to Tanner's stages (1962). Descriptive analysis was performed with absolute and relative frequency for categorical variables and mean and standard error for numerical variables. The association between early maturation and gross and adjusted anthropometric measurements was used the Linear Regression for numerical variables, and Poisson Regression for categorical variables. Statistical significance was given by the Wald test and a ‘p’ value of 5% was adopted for the last reported model. Results: Regarding the process of sexual maturation 44.2% of the girls answered that they were younger than 12 years old at menarche. It was observed that as the Tanner stages of sexual maturation advanced, the greater was the increase in the percentage of body mass (kg) regardless of sex. As for body mass index - BMI (kg/m²), the highest average was found in Tanner's T5 maturation stage, both in females and males, respectively, 95% CI 22.7 (22.5; 22.8) and 95% CI 21.6 (21.4; 21.8). Conclusion: This study corroborates the existing results in the literature that girls who present early sexual maturation have a high chance of presenting a higher prevalence of obesity. Regarding boys, the study failed to demonstrate an association due to the lack of markers that determined the exact time of maturation as in girls.