Results1. Upon the weight-for-height percentiles, their obesity rate was 9.2% and overweight rate 15.8%. However, upon BMI the result was a little different, that is, their obesity rate is 13.2% and overweight rate is 24.3%. 2. About 40% of the girls had a family history of early maturation. Among them, 25.7% had a maternal history, 4.6% paternal and 7.2% both. However, 60% of them had no family history. 3. We then classified these girls into the families with one daughter and one son and those with two daughters. In one-daughter/one-son families, 65.3% were the first children and 30.8% were seconds. In two-daughters families, 65.3% were the firsts and 34.7% were seconds. 4. We found that 67.5% had a history of taking herbal medicine materials.
ConclusionsThe obesity and overweight rate in girls with earlier pubertal development was higher than the age-matched normal females, but with a little discrepancy between weight-for-height percentile and BMI-based data. And, it seems to be possible that herbal medicine materials is a potential factor for earlier pubertal development in Korea.