healthykids
EARLY PUBERTY
The New Normal? by Kathleen Barnes
21st-century girls are reaching puberty at dramatically earlier ages than their mothers and grandmothers.
M
any American girls today are experiencing budding breasts and pubic hair before they are
7 years old, according to the govern- ment’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The threshold age has been steadily falling for decades, with the most dramatic decrease between 1997 and 2011. A pivotal 2011 study from the
University of Cincinnati showed that U.S. Caucasian girls on average entered pu- berty at 9.7 years old, three to four months younger than the average age reported by University of North Carolina scientists 14 years earlier and much younger than data from the 1960s. Girls of other ethnicities are also entering puberty at earlier ages, but at less dramatic rates. A 2009 Danish study also showed that their country’s girls were develop- ing breasts a full year earlier than those born 15 years earlier.
Burgers, Fries and
Sodas to Blame The rise in childhood obesity is the major culprit in today’s lower ages of puberty, according to the 2011 study’s lead researcher, Dr. Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. He explains, “Body mass index [BMI] is the overwhelmingly predominant factor in the age at which a girl reaches puberty. It’s become more important than race or ethnicity. Heavy white girls and heavy black girls are all maturing earlier.” Science has long shown that fat
42 Lehigh Valley
tissue produces hormones, includ- ing estrogen, that can accelerate the process of puberty, especially early breast development, according to Dr. Louise Greenspan and Julianna Deardorff, Ph.D., authors of The New Puberty. Greenspan specializes in pedi- atric endocrinology at San Francisco’s Kaiser Permanente Hospital; Deardorff is a clinical psychologist researching pubertal development at the University of California, Berkeley. They cite one foundational study from the 1980s that showed for every BMI point increase, the age of first menstruation dropped by about one month.
Toxic Soup
Ubiquitous hormone-disrupting chemi- cals are undoubtedly a culprit in the early puberty epidemic, says Doctor of Naturopathy Michael Murray, of Phoe- nix, Arizona, who publishes widely on the topic of natural medicine. Endocrine disruptors that trigger
the body to produce excess amounts of
Scant information exists charting puberty trends in boys, although medical researcher Dr. Frank Biro’s findings show that unlike overweight girls, some obese boys tend to reach puberty later than average.
Professionals at the Nationwide
Children’s Hospital, in Columbus, Ohio, suggest talking with a doctor if
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estrogen include chemicals in clothing, especially children’s sleepwear, furniture and carpets, anything plastic, personal care products, cleaning solvents, glues, dry cleaning chemicals, pesticides, her- bicides and non-organic meat and milk. Collectively, they trigger puberty before its natural time. “There’s certainly a link between these persistent pollutants and obesity,” Murray observes.
Antibiotics contained in commer- cial meat and dairy products may be a greater risk than the added hormones, says Greenspan. “Chronic, low-dose an- tibiotic exposure could affect the body’s microbiome [the microorganism colony in the digestive tract], which can lead to obesity and may also influence puberty.”
The Stress Monster “Considerable research now supports the notion that excessive stress early in life can affect the timing of puberty,” says Greenspan. Stressors can range from sexual or child abuse to stressful family relationships, low emotional investment on the part of parents or a depressed mother. “Girls that grow up in homes with- out their biological fathers are twice as likely to experience early menarche as girls that grow up with both parents,” advises Deardorff.
Biro points out that stress is associ- ated with higher levels of cortisol and obesity. Cortisol, the stress hormone, has been directly related to belly fat in numerous studies.
Added Risks
“Early puberty also increases social risks,” says Deardorff. “Girls that de- velop ahead of their peers have more anxiety, a higher incidence of depres-
Signs to Watch for in Boys
a boy starts experiencing any of the following before reaching age 9: 4 Growth of testicles or penis 4 Growth of pubic, underarm or facial hair
4 Rapid height changes 4 Voice deepening 4 Acne 4 Adult body odor
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