“The scientific community suspects that industrial pollutants are responsible for the earlier onset. It falls into the same category as the suspicion that estrogen-like chemicals in plastic containers are responsible for lower and lower sperm counts.”
Perhaps better nutrition might attribute to earlier maturity but one thing that is never mentioned and must be very prevalent is the hormones/birth control med that are released into our water supply via excretion (if some make it through the filtration system in our bodies) or being discarded-flushed down the drain. Maybe it is not an issue but I have always wondered if it might be. It makes more logic to me than other explanations. But birth control and hormone replacement are sacred cows. Similar in my mind to tobacco being vilified but marijuana being promoted. One is taboo and one is the new solution to whatever ails you and is said to be harmless. I don’t use any of those things so I am not invested. Just things I ponder.
Hormonal birth control was not invented until 1960. Onset of menstruation started declining before 1900.