Background: Menarche is one important milestone in during adolescence. Many of girls experience menarche even before they are considered as adolescents. Unfortunately, many parents do not provide adequate information to the girls prior to menarche, because they consider it culturally inappropriate.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 432 adolescent girls in high school classes of Thrissur educational district. The participants were selected from six schools, two each of government, private and aided schools. A Self-Administered structured questionnaire was used for data collection after validation by pilot study. Data was collected on socio-demographic variables and awareness and practices regarding menarche Statistical analysis was done using SPSS statistical software version 23.Results: The age of attaining menarche ranged 7 to 14 years, with the mean age being 12.06 years SD=0.972.More than one-fourth of the girls 28.7% did not have prior knowledge about menstruation at the time of menarche. The major source of information about menstruation was the mother 68.8%, followed by friends 19.2%. Majority 61.3% of the subjects had correct knowledge regarding the cause of menstruation. More than half of the respondents 53.7% missed school days during menarche.Conclusions: The knowledge regarding menstruation was good for adolescent girls when compared to other studies in India. Awareness programs on adolescent girls must be developed and promoted at an early age prior to menarche. Mothers should be educated as they are an important source of information to their daughters.

Introduction: Body image perception is the way a person feels about his/her body and these feelings can be positive, negative or both. It is ever changing, and is influenced by individual and environmental factors. It can be both selfperceived or as perceived by others like family, friends, peer group, teachers etc. Objectives: To assess the body image perception of adolescents and the associated factors and to assess the effect of family, friends, peers and others on the body image perception of adolescents. Methodology: This was a cross sectional study. Four divisions from classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 of a private school, Thrissur were randomly selected. There were 179 students in total. A pretested self administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Results: The proportion of boys (50.3%) and girls (49.7%) were almost equal. In this study 65.4% of the adolescents were having normal BMI for their age.26.2% of the subjects had overweight and 8.4% of the subjects were undernourished. Varying degrees of negative body image perception was seen among 84.91% of subjects. Erroneous body size perception was seen among 36.8% of the subjects. This was statistically significant. A larger proportion of females (40.4%) compared to males (23.4%) was dissatisfied by their body size. Mean BMI was significantly higher in those who were not satisfied with their body size and those who had tried to lose weight in their past. Negative correlation was observed between body image perception and academic performance of the students. Conclusion: A high proportion of adolescents had negative body image perception. Targeted activities have to be carried out to improve their perception.