Studies in the United States suggest that girls are developing secondary sexual
characteristics at earlier ages than in previous years, with non-Hispanic black girls in the United
States experiencing menarche at an earlier age when compared to their peers. Early puberty and
menarche may have multiple detrimental effects, including reduced adult height, increased risk
of breast cancer, obesity, and endometrial cancer. In this thesis, data from published sources of
height and skeletal information on non-Hispanic blacks dating from 1763 to 1861 in the United
States are compared with modern population data from 1988 to 1994. The expected result is that
the modern population should be taller than the historic population. This held true for males, but
not for females. The sexes differed from each other in each population group. This could
suggest that female maturation is under greater genetic control than male, compensating for
harsh living conditions. / Department of Anthropology
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:123456789/193593 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Poulos, Mari K. |
| Contributors | Bowers, Evelyn J. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | v, 306 p. : digital, PDF file, ill. (some col.) |
| Source | CardinalScholar 1.0 |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
Page generated in 0.0016 seconds