The aim of this study is the assessment of young samba dancers biological maturation process and its relationship with socioeconomic stratum, growth and body composition, emphasizing both the development during adolescence comprising infancy and adulthood and the several intermediate stages through a collection of the ordinary used parameters. With this purpose, sexual maturation was assessed as well as its most important physical and social signs. The authors assessed 118 girls aged between 9 and 16 years attending the samba school of Nilópolis. The variables used to determine some characteristics of the maturational development were: axillary hair, menarcheal age through retrospective method and status quo, pubic hair and genital development using Tanner protocol. According to the results presented, it seems that: the mean age of menarche is similar to other samples, although lower; socioeconomic level and familiar income seem not to interfere neither in the number of the girls after menarche and the mean age of the occurrence of this phenomenon. The groups of lower familiar income are composed of girls after menarche, and showing higher levels of fat. On the contrary, when familiar income is higher the authors have found girls before menarche with higher levels of fat.
Sexual maturation; Samba dancer; Menarche; Puberty; Axillary hair; Socioeconomic level; Biological maturation
