Secular Trends in Height, Body Mass, and BMI among Girls in the Eastern Poland Region (1986–2021): Public Health Perspectives

Agnieszka Wasiluk; Jerzy Saczuk

doi:10.2478/sjph-2026-0006

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Secular Trends in Height, Body Mass, and BMI among Girls in the Eastern Poland Region (1986–2021): Public Health Perspectives

Slovenian Journal of Public Health

Volume 65 (2026): Issue 1 (March 2026)

By: Agnieszka Wasiluk and Jerzy Saczuk

Open Access

|Mar 2026

Figures & Tables

Table 1.

Number of girls examined by chronological age and observation period.

Year	Age 8	Age 13	Age 17	Total
1986	1776	2488	2553	6817
1996	159	269	101	529
2006	788	1209	1542	3539
2016	344	533	304	1181
2021	1566	763	430	2759
Total	4633	5262	4930	14825

Table 2.

Height of girls examined between 1986 and 2021, including results of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test.

Age	Year
	1986 (I)			1996 (II)			2006 (III)			2016 (IV)			2021 (V)
	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD
8	1776	127.75	5.93	159	126.48	7.41	788	129.56	6.86	344	131.22	6.53	1566	133.88	6.41
13	2488	154.53	6.89	269	156.33	7.32	1209	158.94	8.30	533	156.99	7.68	763	161.63	6.61
17	2553	162.14	5.91	101	163.46	4.77	1542	166.54	6.19	304	167.95	5.94	430	166.85	6.32

values of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test
	ANOVA	I-II	I-III	I-IV	I-V	II-III	II-IV	II-V	III-IV	III-V	IV-V
8	214.35	3.41	9.41^*	13.10^*	39.34^*	39.34^*	11.00^*	19.78^*	5.91^*	22.00^*	13 9.94^*
13	169.56	5.43	24.36^*	9.98^*	3.23^*	3.23^*	1.71	14.48^*	7.26^*	11.27^*	15.92^*
17	183.35	3.06	32.07^*	22.51^*	21.24^*	21.24^*	9.19^*	7.21^*	5.28^*	1.34	3.45

[i] Legend: n – number of participants; mean – arithmetic mean; SD – standard deviation; I–V – study years: I = 1986, II = 1996, III = 2006, IV = 2016, V = 2021; I–II, I–III, … – comparisons between corresponding study years (e.g., I–II = 1986 vs. 1996). The values in the lower part of the table represent test statistics from Bonferroni-adjusted pairwise post hoc comparisons following a one-way ANOVA.

[ii] Statistically significant differences at p ≤ 0.05 are marked with an asterisk.

Table 3.

Body mass of girls examined between 1986 and 2021, including results of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test.

Age	Year
	1986 (I)			1996 (II)			2006 (III)			2016 (IV)			2021 (V)
	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD
8	1776	26.92	4.14	159	26.42	5.43	788	27.05	5.22	344	28.74	6.25	1566	31.85	7.72
13	2488	44.85	8.52	269	45.14	8.02	1209	48.08	8.23	533	47.34	8.60	763	53.56	10.33
17	2553	57.85	4.88	101	57.17	7.31	1542	56.51	7.24	304	57.99	6.92	430	58.21	9.01

values of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test
	ANOVA	I-II	I-III	I-IV	I-V	II-III	II-IV	II-V	III-IV	III-V	IV-V
8	171.11	1.41	0.72	7.36^*	33.87^*	1.73	5.76^*	15.54^*	6.23^*	26.17^*	12.44^*
13	153.21	0.73	14.93^*	8.46^*	34.11^*	7.07^*	4.77^*	19.25^*	2.31	19.21^*	17.86^*
17	13.29	1.50	9.31^*	0.52	1.55	1.44	1.60	2.11	5.28	6.98	0.66

[ii] Statistically significant differences at p ≤ 0.05 are marked with an asterisk.

Table 4.

BMI of girls examined between 1986 and 2021, including results of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test.

Age	Year
	1986 (I)			1996 (II)			2006 (III)			2016 (IV)			2021 (V)
	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD
8	1776	16.50	1.71	159	16.52	1.87	788	16.11	2.08	344	16.61	2.89	1566	17.64	3.41
13	2488	18.78	2.09	269	18.47	2.31	1209	19.03	2.33	533	19.13	2.71	763	20.44	3.42
17	2553	22.01	1.88	101	21.40	1.76	1542	20.37	1.74	304	21.53	1.92	430	20.88	2.84

values of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc test
	ANOVA	I-II	I-III	I-IV	I-V	II-III	II-IV	II-V	III-IV	III-V	IV-V
8	63.63	0.13	5.04^*	1.03	18.20^*	2.61	0.52	7.45^*	4.28	19.39^*	9.57^*
13	72.12	2.78	4.11^*	4.23^*	23.11^*	4.79^*	5.08^*	16.01^*	1.11	17.57^*	13.37^*
17	178.88	4.38^*	37.03^*	5.76^*	15.79^*	7.30^*	0.82	3.42	13.46^*	6.81^*	6.32^*

[ii] Statistically significant differences at p ≤ 0.05 are marked with an asterisk.

Prevalence (%) of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity among 8-year-old girls in 1986, 2006, 2016, and 2021.

Prevalence (%) of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity among 13-year-old girls in 1986, 2006, 2016, and 2021.

Prevalence (%) of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity among 17-year-old girls in 1986, 2006, 2016, and 2021.

Table 4.

Statistical significance of differences in the prevalence of underweight, normal weight, overweight and obesity across successive survey years within each age group.

	1986–2006	1986–2016	1986–2021	2006–2016	2006–2021	2016–2021
	Age 8
Underweight	2.849	0.019	4.355^*	0.956	11.150^*	1.885
Normal weight	7.303^*	1.063	21.864^*	0.742	1.108	2.965
Overweight and obesity	31.067^*	8.510^*	143.567^*	1.062	17.169^*	16.439^*
	Age 13
Underweight	3.055	4.110^*	4.432^*	9.063^*	10.194^*	0.033
Normal weight	0.007	0.039	2.545	0.015	2.239	1.812
Overweight and obesity	7.135^*	2.151	43.016^*	10.275^*	61.009^*	11.482^*
	Age 17
Underweight	64.341^*	17.791^*	1.212	0.041	12.511^*	6.256^*
Normal weight	1.252	1.630	0.841	0.447	0.048	0.163
Overweight and obesity	44.020^*	0.035	4.638^*	12.172^*	40.514^*	2.573

Legend:

* Significant differences at the level of p ≤ 0.05.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2026-0006 | Journal eISSN: 1854-2476 | Journal ISSN: 0351-0026

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Language: English, Slovenian

Page range: 41 - 50

Submitted on: Aug 20, 2025

Accepted on: Jan 19, 2026

Published on: Mar 1, 2026

Published by: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

Secular trends,

BMI,

Physical development,

Nutritional status

Related subjects:

Medicine,

Clinical medicine,

Hygiene and environmental medicine

© 2026 Agnieszka Wasiluk, Jerzy Saczuk, published by National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 65 (2026): Issue 1 (March 2026)

Secular Trends in Height, Body Mass, and BMI among Girls in the Eastern Poland Region (1986–2021): Public Health Perspectives

Figures & Tables

Table 1.

Table 2.

Table 3.

Table 4.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Table 4.

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