Billewicz W Z, Fellowes H M, Hytten C A
Ann Hum Biol. 1976 Jan;3(1):51-9. doi: 10.1080/03014467600001131.
Data from Frisch and Revelle (1971) and Frisch et al. (1973) are used to show that some of their biological conclusions relating body composition to age at menarche follow directly from arithmetical operations on the two observed items of information: weight and height. This emphasizes the dangers of drawing biological conclusions from derived, as opposed to observed, data. The hypothesis that an age-unrelated critical body weight triggers off menarche is examined in relation to preliminary data from a longitudinal study of adolescent girls. It is unacceptable because: (a) mean weights at menarche showed an upward trend with increasing age; (b) for given body weights the proportion of girls starting to menstruate increased with age; (c) at all ages the variation of body weight at menarche was as large as that among non-menstruating girls: (d) only 41 per cent of girls started to menstruate at weights 48 +/- 5 kg; and (e) eleven of the 20 girls whose weight exceeded 48 kg at the age 10-5-11 years did not start to menstruate although 1-1-5 years had elapsed since they attained the "critical" weight. Although no direct body composition data are presented the behaviour of skinfold suggests that body composition is unlikely to be the primary trigger of menarche.
弗里施和雷维尔（1971年）以及弗里施等人（1973年）的数据被用于表明，他们得出的一些关于身体组成与初潮年龄之间关系的生物学结论，直接源于对体重和身高这两项观测信息进行的算术运算。这凸显了从推导数据而非观测数据得出生物学结论的危险性。针对初潮由与年龄无关的临界体重触发这一假设，依据对青春期女孩的一项纵向研究的初步数据进行了检验。该假设不可接受，原因如下：（a）初潮时的平均体重随年龄增长呈上升趋势；（b）对于给定体重，开始月经来潮的女孩比例随年龄增加；（c）在所有年龄组中，初潮时体重的变化与未月经初潮女孩的体重变化一样大；（d）只有41%的女孩在体重达到48±5千克时开始月经来潮；（e）在10.5至11岁时体重超过48千克的20名女孩中，有11名尽管自达到“临界”体重已过去1.15年，但仍未开始月经来潮。尽管未给出直接的身体组成数据，但皮褶厚度的表现表明，身体组成不太可能是初潮的主要触发因素。
