Age at menarche in Polish University students born before, during and after World War II: Economic effects Gra _ zyna Liczbi  nska a, *, Zbigniew Czapla b, *, Janusz Piontek c , Robert M. Malina d a Department of Human Evolutionary Ecology, Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna n, Umultowska 89, 61-614, Pozna n, Poland b Department of Human Biological Development, Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna n, Umultowska 89, 61- 614, Pozna n, Poland c Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Pozna n, Umultowska 89, 61-614, Pozna n, Poland d Department of Kinesiology and Health Education, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78705, United States A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 17 July 2017 Received in revised form 8 November 2017 Accepted 14 November 2017 Available online 21 November 2017 Keywords: Economy Weight status Standard of living BMI Father’s education A B S T R A C T Although the relationships between economic conditions and biological variables over the past two centuries in Poland are reasonably well-documented, the influence of economic and political disruptions, including nutritional privation, during the years immediately before, during and shortly after World War II (WWII) has received less attention. This paper considers the association between age at menarche and body size of university students born before, during and after WWII and father’s level of education, a commonly used indicator of family economic status in Poland. Subjects were 518 university students surveyed between 1955 and 1972, birth years 1931 through 1951. The sample was divided into three birth cohorts: before (n = 237), during (n = 247) and after (n = 34) WWII. Age at menarche was compared among birth cohorts, and by weight status and father’s level of education. Age at menarche increased slightly but significantly among women born during WWII (14.4 yrs) compared to those born before (14.2 yrs) and after (13.9 yrs) the war. Controlling for year of birth and age of the student, age at menarche was significantly earlier in overweight (13.42  0.35 yrs) than in normal weight (14.33  0.06 yrs) and thin (14.54  0.21 yrs) women. Adjusted mean ages at menarche in small samples of overweight women did not differ by father’s level of education, and were earlier than corresponding ages of thin and normal weight women. Adjusted mean ages at menarche did not differ between thin and normal weight women with fathers having primary or no education, but were slightly later in thin than in normal weight women with fathers having a vocational, secondary or higher education. Although age at menarche was associated with father’s level of education, young adult weight status was a somewhat more important correlate. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Four biological characteristics are commonly used as a “barometer” of human well-being in the historical context: status of skeletal remains, life expectancy, morbidity and body height (Steckel, 1979, 1992, 1995, 2008). More recently, weight-for-height reflected in the BMI is increasingly used as indicator of well-being. Given the political, economic and social turbulence that characterized Polish history over the past two centuries, the country was fertile ground to evaluate the impact of these conditions on the biological characteristics of the population. The economic transition from the feudal system to a capitalist economy in the 19th century was reflected in improvements in quality of life and associated increases of body height, especially among the rural population of Poland (Czapla and Liczbi  nska, 2014; Kozak, 1998; Liczbi  nska et al., 2016). Similar changes were noted in other European countries during this transition (Komlos, 1989). Indus- trialization and urbanization in the 19th century, however, were associated with a deterioration of living conditions in rapidly growing cities of Poland and throughout Europe; mortality rates increased while life expectancy decreased (Bourdelais, 2000; Humphries and Leunig, 2007; Jaadla and Puur, 2016; Jaadla et al., * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: grazyna@amu.edu.pl (G. Liczbi  nska), czapla@amu.edu.pl (Z. Czapla). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2017.11.004 1570-677X/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Economics and Human Biology 28 (2018) 23–28 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Economics and Human Biology journa l homepage: www.e lsevier.com/locate/ehb