Surjani Chatterjee¹, Neepa Banerjee¹, Tanaya Santra¹, Ayan Chatterjee¹, Sandipan Chatterjee¹, Indranil Manna², Ushri Banerjee³, Shankarashis Mukherjee^1,

Growth spurts generally occurs at adolescents when favourable conditions operate throughout the entire period of growth. This growth, especially in terms of body height, is a mark of a country’s socio- economic improvement as well as a child’s general condition or health. But along with this growth, the change in the lifestyle is resulting in excess body weight or obesity a serious public health challenge of the 21^st century. On the other hand, movement, a basic form of communication, through dance, helps in recreation and to express. In this backdrop, a study has been undertaken to observe the influence of dancing on growth in terms of body height and obesity indices like WHR, WHtR, BAI, BMAI, HAI, CI and CFR in Bengalee female adolescents of Kolkata. 33 adolescent female individuals, receiving dance training for a minimum period of 5 years and practicing regularly for at least an hour for 6 days in a week constituted the dancing group (DG). The control group (CG) had 37 female individuals of comparable age and socio-economic background, but not receiving training in any form of dance or exercise. It was found that the adolescent female individuals practicing dance regularly have significantly (P < 0.05) higher growth but significantly (P < 0.05) lower obesity indices compared to their age matched counterparts. It may be concluded that dance is a cost effective beneficial way of exercising; it can serve as potential tool for growth and optimum body composition in Bengalee female adolescents of Kolkata.

classical dancing, central obesity, growth, Bengalee, anthropometry