RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Menarcheal age is a sensitive indicator of environmental conditions during childhood. The aim of study is to determine the age at menarche and growth status in adolescents in a rural area of Tarka, Wannune, Nigeria. METHODS: Data on 722 female students (aged 12-18 years) were collected in February 2009. Height and weight were measured. Body mass index (BMI; kg m-2) was used as an index of relative weight. RESULTS: Mean and median menarcheal age calculated by probit analysis were 13.02 (SD 3.0) (95% CI: 13.02-13.07), and age 13.00 (SD 2.8) (95% CI: 12.98-13.04), respectively. Girls who reach menarche are significantly heavier and taller with higher BMIs than those of their pre-menarcheal peers. CONCLUSION: The age of menarche is probably still declining in Nigeria. Although BMI is an important factor in the onset of menstruation, some other unmeasured environmental variables may be implicated in this population.
Assuntos
Estatura , Peso Corporal , Menarca , Adolescente , Índice de Massa Corporal , Criança , Feminino , Humanos , NigériaRESUMO
Assessment of practical skills in physical education lessons have often been criticised as subjective. In this study three experienced judges' ratings poorly predicted the 116 students' scores on the French badminton short service test.
Assuntos
Logro , Educação Física e Treinamento , Esportes com Raquete , Estudantes , Adulto , Feminino , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMO
An experiment assessed whether novice table-tennis players' ball-balancing and bouncing skills could predict their performances after a semester of being coached. A pretest-posttest design was used to test this hypothesis with 82 male and 77 female physical education students who initially performed the skills and subsequently participated in a round-robin tournament. Moderate negative but significant (p<.01) Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients were obtained between some of the ball control skills scores and overall ranking in the table-tennis tournament.