American girls are hitting puberty earlier than ever ”” a change that puts them at higher risk for behavioral problems as adolescents and breast cancer as adults, a new study shows.
About 15% of 1,239 girls studied showed the beginnings of breast development at age 7, according to an article in today’s Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls, twice as many as in a 1997 study, showed breast growth by that age, as did 23% of black girls and 15% of Hispanic girls.
The median age of breast development fell from 10.9 years in 1991 to 9.9 in 2006, according to a Danish study published in Pediatrics last year.
I have books from the 18 hundreds that indicate that puberty usually didn’t hit girls til 16 -18 at that time.
I also remembered that when I was in school that it didn’t seem that puberty hit girls til 14 -15 or so. To see if my memories were correct I went to look at several high school year books. Not only did I find that I was correct but my wife pointed out how girlish and smiling were the girls faces in the country school in the 1960’s but how adult and serious were the girls of the same age in the 1970’s. It looked as if the 1970’s group were carrying a burden too heavy to carry. This relates to the article’s last paragraph, “It also increases the odds that girls will develop low self-esteem, eating disorders and depression. Girls who hit puberty sooner are more likely to attempt suicide and to have earlier sexual activity.”
I firmly believe that our modern culture has terrorist tendencies toward children. We terrorise our own children.
Don
I think the chemicals and steroids that are used in our foods may have an affect.
Some of this is simple biology. Puberty occurs in human females when they reach a certain wieght (about 100 lbs)t. Better nutrition, coupled with childhood obesity – and the age decreses. That this is happening in our culture is the problem.
I worry about growth hormones in milk and other dairy products for little girls. I think that if I had little girls, I’d cough up the money to get organic dairy products just to avoid the possibility of harmful hormones.
I agree with RandomJoe. It’s largely a function of weight. The same principle is in effect on the other end of the spectrum, too — girls and young women who exercise heavily and are very thin see a cessation of their menstrual cycles. Gymnists are a good example.
I would suggest rather that girls are reaching puberty earlier because they are being powerfully pressured to do so. Our entire culture virtually demands early onset sexuality, and girls’ bodies are responding obediently. And I vaguely remember reading precisely this argument in scientific mags several years ago. Does anyone recall this? Larry