Evaluation of the association between precocious puberty and obesity

Abstract

Objective: The marked variation in the timing of puberty despite similar living conditions shows that many factors are effective in determining the onset of puberty. Many factors, such as genetic and environmental factors, stress, socioeconomic status, metabolic rate, and body fat ratio, affect the age of puberty onset. Recent studies have shown that the age of puberty onset has shifted to earlier ages. The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity is deemed to contribute this change. Therefore, we planned the present study to determine the rates of obesity and overweight, to evaluate the association between obesity, bone age, and height age, and to examine the association between obesity and hormone profile.
 Materials and Methods: The medical records of 206 patients diagnosed with idiopathic precocious puberty who were being followed up at the Pediatric Endocrinology outpatient clinic of Sakarya Training and Research Hospital between October 2018 and October 2021 were retrospectively reviewed. Anthropometric data (age, gender, height, weight, body mass index, and puberty stage), bone age, height age, and weight age of the patients were recorded from the medical records. Patients were grouped as normal weight, overweight, and obese by body mass index (BMI).
 Results: Of the included patients, 97.6% (201 patients) were female and 2.4% (5 patients) were male. One hundred and thirty-one patients (63.6%) had normal weight, 40 (19.4%) were overweight and 35 (17%) had obesity. Significant differences were found between the groups (normal weight, overweight and obese) in terms of weight age, BMI percentile, height age, bone age, and bone age standard deviation score (SDS) (p =

The psychosocial functioning in adolescents with severe obesity evaluated throughout the strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ): a preliminary report

“…Adolescence is a particularly high-risk time for weight gain due to the naturally occurring metabolic changes of puberty, but obese children have been found to gain more weight than their normal-weight peers ( Jasik and Lustig, 2008 ). In addition, many studies confirm that overweight and obesity in childhood can influence early puberty, mainly in females ( Polat, 2022 ). In a recent study, earlier pubertal timing was associated with several psychological distress and behavioral problems, such as more alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis use, more risky behavior, emotional distress, greater likelihood of being bullied, and more symptoms of major depressive disorder, and adult antisocial behavior ( Padrutt et al, 2023 ).…”