Background: Menarche is viewed as an excellent physiological marker of adolescent maturation.[1] It is apparent that the age at menarche is a developmental milestone, which is highly variable and highly sensitive to a variety of internal and external forces. Knowledge of the age at menarche will help the government to design and implement programmes about reproductive health of women, to set laws about age at marriage, family planning, abortion etc and to decide the appropriate age at which the topics like the sex education, contraception and sanitary practices can be incorporated in schools. The present study attempts to find the age at menarche in girls from Gulbarga city of Karnataka. We also investigated whether the age at menarche is associated with mother’s menarcheal age, socioeconomic status,BMI. The findings are reported here. Design: Observational cross sectional study. Methods: the study was conducted among school going girls aged between 10 and 16 years.246 girls participated in the study on voluntary basis.A predesigned questionnaire was administered and girls were briefly examined.Data collected was analysed using MS excel and EPI info version 4. Results: Out of 246 cases studied 152 cases were having menstruation, most frequent age of menarche being 12 years when 46 cases (18.7%)had its onset and 13years when 46 cases (18.7%) had its onset. The lowest age was 10 years and highest was 14 year. Mean age at menarche was found to be12.14 (± 1.086). There seems to be definite association of various factors which modify the age at menarche like mother’s menarcheal age,socio-economic status. Conclusion: There was a positive correlation between menarche and maternal age at menarche and socioeconomic status.

Key Words: Mean age at menarche; Body mass index; Menarche; Socio-economic status.