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William Cameron Chumlea

Publications and source records attributed to William Cameron Chumlea.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Is sexual maturity occurring earlier among U.S. children?

PURPOSE: To compare the onset and completion of sexual maturation among U.S. children between 1966 and 1994. METHODS: Tanner stages were from 3042 non-Hispanic white boys, 478 black boys, 2625 white girls, and 505 black girls (NHES 1966-70), from 717 Mexican-American boys and 712 Mexican-American girls (HHANES 1982-84) and from 259 non-Hispanic white boys, 411 black boys, 291 white girls, 415 black girls, 576 Mexican-American boys and 512 Mexican-American girls (NHANES III 1988-1994). Proportions of entry into a stage, probit analysis estimated medians and selected percentiles for ages at entry were calculated using SUDAAN. RESULTS: NHANES III (1988-1994) non-Hispanic white boys entered stage 2, 3, and 4 genital development and stages 3 and 4 pubic hair earlier than NHES (1966-1970) white boys, but they entered stage 5 genital development significantly later. NHANES III (1988-1994) Mexican-American boys were in stage 2, 3 and 4 genital development earlier than HHANES (1982-1984) boys, but entry into stage 5 genital and pubic hair development was not significant. NHANES III (1988-1994) white girls entered stage 5 pubic hair later than NHES (1966-1970) white girls. NHANES III (1988-1994) Mexican-American girls entered stage 2 breast and pubic hair development earlier than HHANES (1982-1984) girls, entered stage 4 breast and pubic hair development earlier but entered stage 5 pubic hair later than the HHANES (1982-1984) girls. CONCLUSION: Persuasive evidence of a secular trend toward early maturation is not found between 1966 and 1994 in non-Hispanic black boys and non-Hispanic black and white girls. Some evidence of this trend is found in non-Hispanic white boys between 1966 and 1994 and in Mexican-American boys and girls between 1982 and 1994.

Adolescent↗

Concordant and discordant sexual maturation among U.S. children in relation to body weight and BMI.

PURPOSE: This study investigates the extent to which discordant Tanner stages for sexual maturity indicators are associated with weight and body mass index (BMI) and their variation during adolescence. Discordant children with large differences in weight and BMI may require additional monitoring of their growth during adolescence. METHODS: Weight, BMI and Tanner stages, pubic hair in each gender, breast development in girls and genital development in boys, from 2103 boys and 2104 girls aged 8-18 years (average age 13.34 years) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III, 1988-1994) were analyzed. These cross-sectional data were grouped as concordant: assessed stages for paired indicators were equivalent, or as discordant: assessed stage for one paired indicator was greater or less than the other by one or more stages. Weight and BMI were compared separately by gender and race between concordant and discordant groups using analysis of covariance adjusted for age. RESULTS: Approximately 65-69% of all children were concordant, genital stage equaled pubic hair stage for boys and breast stage equaled pubic hair stage for girls. For all three racial groups, boys whose genital stage was more advanced than their pubic hair stage had significantly smaller weight and BMI (p<.05) than either concordant boys or boys whose pubic hair stage was more advanced than their genital stage. For all three racial groups, girls whose breast stage was more advanced than their pubic hair stage had significantly greater weight and BMI than girls whose pubic hair stage was more advanced than breast stage. Non-Hispanic black and Mexican-American girls whose breast stage was more advanced than their pubic hair stage had significantly greater weight and BMI that the respective concordant girls. CONCLUSION: Substantial and significant differences occur in weight and BMI among discordant and concordant children, and these differences are larger than between early and late maturing children.

Adolescent↗

Puberty and body composition.

Body composition during puberty is a marker of metabolic changes that occur during this period of growth and maturation, and, thus, holds key information regarding current and future health. During puberty, the main components of body composition (total body fat, lean body mass, bone mineral content) all increase, but considerable sexual dimorphism exists. Methods for measuring body composition (e.g. densitometry and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry) and degree of maturity will be discussed in this review. Components of body composition show age-to-age correlations (i.e. 'tracking'), especially from adolescence onwards. Furthermore, adipose tissue is endocrinologically active and is centrally involved in the interaction between adipocytokines, insulin and sex-steroid hormones, and thus influences cardiovascular and metabolic disease processes. In conclusion, pubertal body composition is important, not only for the assessment of contemporaneous nutritional status, but also for being linked directly to the possible onset of chronic disease later in life and is, therefore, useful for disease risk assessment and intervention early in life.

Adolescent↗

Age at menarche and racial comparisons in US girls.

BACKGROUND: Concern regarding change in the onset of sexual maturation of US girls has increased the need for current information on age at menarche from a national sample. Previous reports have been sparse and interpretation has been limited because of the racial composition and ages of the samples. OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study were to estimate the distribution of age at menarche for all US girls and for non-Hispanic white, black, and Mexican American girls in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and to test for racial differences. DESIGN: Menstrual status data were collected from 2510 girls aged 8.0 to 20.0 years. The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey followed a complex, stratified, multistage probability cluster design. SUDAAN was used to calculate proportions of girls reaching menarche at an age. Ages at menarche were estimated by probit analysis at the ages at which 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% of the girls attained menarche. RESULTS: Less than 10% of US girls start to menstruate before 11 years, and 90% of all US girls are menstruating by 13.75 years of age, with a median age of 12.43 years. This age at menarche is not significantly different (0.34 years earlier) than that reported for US girls in 1973. Age at menarche for non-Hispanic black girls was significantly earlier than that of white girls at 10%, 25%, and 50% of those who had attained menarche, whereas Mexican American girls were only significantly earlier than the white girls at 25%. CONCLUSION: Overall, US girls are not gaining reproductive potential earlier than in the past. The age at menarche of non-Hispanic black girls is significantly earlier than that of non-Hispanic white and Mexican American girls.

Adolescent↗

Relations between frame size and body composition and bone mineral status.

BACKGROUND: Frame size is a description of the supportive structure of the skeleton that is used to adjust for skeletal mass and size in measures of body composition and weight. OBJECTIVE: Data from the Fels Longitudinal Study were used to investigate the relation between bicristal, elbow, knee, biacromial, and wrist breadths and measures of total body fat (TBF), fat-free mass (FFM), bone mineral content (BMC), and bone mineral density (BMD) from dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. DESIGN: The sample consisted of cross-sectional data from 224 white men and 277 white women aged 23-65 y. Multiple regressions were conducted with stature-adjusted measures of body composition and bone mineral status as dependent variables and age and frame size as independent variables. RESULTS: Frame-size measures were significantly and positively associated with all body-composition and bone mineral measures in bivariate analyses. In both men and women, the significant models explained more of the variance in measures of TBF (R2 = 0.51 and 0.66, respectively) and FFM (R2 = 0.35 and 0.39, respectively) than in measures of BMC (R2 = 0.18 and 0.23, respectively) and BMD (R2 = 0.08 and 0.18, respectively). Bicristal, knee, and wrist breadths were associated with TBF, and biacromial, knee, and wrist breadths were positively associated with FFM. Biacromial breadth was positively associated with BMC and BMD. CONCLUSIONS: Frame size was more closely associated with TBF and FFM than with BMC and BMD. The association between frame size and body composition seems to be more structural than substantive. The relations between frame size and BMC and BMD are weak and apparently not related to body composition.

Absorptiometry, Photon↗

Predicting overweight and obesity in adulthood from body mass index values in childhood and adolescence.

BACKGROUND: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) introduced the clinical use of the body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)) in growth charts for young males and females. OBJECTIVE: This study updates our previous report with the use of new CDC BMI charts and definitions of adult overweight and obesity to predict adult overweight or obesity. DESIGN: Logistic models were fitted to relate adult overweight and obesity to childhood and adolescent BMI values at each age for 166 males and 181 females in the Fels Longitudinal Study and were applied to predict adult overweight and obesity at the 75th, 85th, and 95th percentiles on the CDC charts of childhood and adolescent BMI. RESULTS: A child or adolescent with a high BMI percentile on the CDC BMI-for-age growth charts has a high risk of being overweight or obese at 35 y of age, and this risk increases with age. For example, the probability of adult obesity at the 85th percentile for young males was </=20% to 17 y of age and 20-59.9% afterward; the corresponding probability for young females was 20-39.9% to 18 y of age and 40-59.9% afterward. CONCLUSION: Our clinically applicable method assigns a child's or adolescent's BMI value to a group with a known probability of overweight or obesity in adulthood.

Adolescent↗

National estimates of the timing of sexual maturation and racial differences among US children.

OBJECTIVE: To provide clinically meaningful, normative reference data that describe the timing of sexual maturity indicators among a national sample of US children and to determine the degree of racial/ethnic differences in these estimates for each maturity indicator. METHODS: Tanner staging assessment of sexual maturity indicators was recorded from 4263 non-Hispanic white, black, and Mexican American girls and boys aged 8.00 to 19.00 years as part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) conducted between 1988 and 1994. NHANES III followed a complex, stratified, multistage probability cluster design. SUDAAN was used to calculate the mean age and standard error for each maturity stage and the proportion of entry into a maturity stage and to incorporate the sampling weight and design effects of the NHANES III complex sampling design. Probit analysis and median age at entry into a maturity stage and its fiducial limits were calculated using SAS 8.2. RESULTS: Reference data for age at entry for maturity stages are presented in tabular and graphical format. Non-Hispanic black girls had an earlier sexual development for pubic hair and breast development either by median age at entry for a stage or for the mean age for a stage than Mexican American or non-Hispanic white girls. There were few to no significant differences between the Mexican American and non-Hispanic white girls. Non-Hispanic black boys also had earlier median and mean ages for sexual maturity stages than the non-Hispanic white and Mexican American boys. CONCLUSION: Non-Hispanic black girls and boys mature early, but US children completed their sexual development at approximately the same ages. The present reference data for the timing of sexual maturation are recommended for the interpretation of assessments of sexual maturity in US children.

Adolescent↗