Can socioeconomic factors account for “atypical” correlations between timing, peak velocity, and intensity of adolescent growth in Taiwanese girls?

This study uses longitudinal height records of girls in two urban and one rural area in Taiwan. Individual height records were modeled with the Preece‐Baines Model 1 (PB1) function to test two related hypotheses: 1) Taiwanese students who experienced a relatively stable, affluent growth environment from an early age, as judged from parental education and stability of residence type, will have a pattern of correlations for the timing and intensity of the growth spurt similar to those of European and American females; and 2) those students whose parents gained the wherewithal to move from single‐story to multi‐story dwellings while they were in primary school will have the most atypical patterns. The extent to which these and other sociodemographic factors influence pubertal spurt velocities and increments of adolescent growth were explored as well using multiple regression analyses. Results support the view that rapid socioeconomic change in Taiwan influenced the relationship between the timing and intensity of adolescent growth in stature. Children in the more stable environments in both urban areas had patterns of correlations typical of population samples from developed countries. The most atypical correlations in both areas were found among those who likely experienced the greatest improvement in socioeconomic status during primary school. These represent positive values previously unreported in the literature. Differences in amounts of growth, though in accord with these patterns, were quite small. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:102–117, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.