Posted on 08/09/2010 11:26:00 AM PDT by Ben Mugged
A US study shows that almost one in four black girls and one in 10 white girls had developed breasts by the age of seven.
The findings are the latest in a string of studies showing that girls in the US are reaching puberty sooner, with implications both for the social and emotional wellbeing of girls as well as for their physical health in later life. Early maturation has been shown to cause low self-esteem and doubts about body image, as well as greater rates of eating problems, depression and attempted suicide.
It is linked to earlier sexual experiences, and later on carries greater risks of breast cancer.
The researchers found that at the age of seven 23.4% of black girls, 14.9% of Hispanics and 10.4% of white girls had developed breasts.
At 8 those proportions had risen further to 42.9%, 30.9% and 18.3% respectively.
A similar survey completed in 1997 found the proportion of white girls who had developed breasts by seven was 5% half of what it is today.
The proportion of black girls in that bracket has also shot up in the past decade, from 15% in 1997 to 23% today.
Studies have shown that in the 1700s girls began menstruation on average at about age 17-18, though that might be as much to do with widespread malnutrition as with other factors.
Experts point to several possible causes of the declining age of puberty.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Our kids weigh more...it’s mostly about weight.
What is freaky is how it is not stopping. How much further can it go, and what is really driving it? It was easy to say 'better nutrition' for the first century or so, but for the last 50 years or more adequate nutrition is not an issue.
OK, now that I read the article I see it made the same points... doh.
Fathers in the home delay the onset of puberty.
The racial disparity of this study correlates with that.
Need to cross check the results with the kid’s body fat index. I’m betting breast development is faster for chubby girls - a more ‘abundant’ environment causes them to be ready for childbearing earlier.
Hormones in the Chicken .... bar none that has got to be some of the most damaging stuff we’re consuming as a nation.
I suspect you're probably right, at least in part. It would be interesting to see a comparative study of the Amish or some other group that didn't have the same volume or intensity of exposure to our media culture.
Maybe it has something to do with decades of estrogen being pissed into the water supply?
No, it can’t have anything to do with that. That’s related to women empowering themselves by enabling them to have pregnancy-free sex with strangers in dance club bathrooms.
I am a misogynist for even asking the question, I know.
And the daughter that got her period MIGHT have larger breasts. But she wears blouses and well-fitting shirts with a padded bra and the other still wears a kid’s bra under a sweatshirt or a baggy T-shirt - so I’m not sure!
My wife was a long-distance runner in High School. She claims she actually reversed puberty by cutting body fat. Periods stopped, etc.
However, she also went vegetarian, too.
Very feminine now, though.
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Early maturation is also related to obesity which would also lead to the other outcomes measured in the study.
I’m sure the authors were aware of this connection but just forgot to mention it.
Two different trained health professionals examined the girls two separate times between 2004 and 2006 to distinguish between breast tissue and fatty tissue, the researchers said.
Pollutants that mimic the female hormone estrogen might also be contributing to early puberty, said study author Dr. Frank Biro of Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
"Whether [they be in] food that they've eaten, or products that are used for personal care products, as well as products that could be used at their homes," Biro said.
The researchers are beginning studies to determine whether environmental exposures to chemicals could be contributing to earlier puberty among girls.
It is thought that a combination of genetics, environment and individual factors like weight cause puberty to begin.
Previous research on puberty, specifically the menstrual cycle, has indicated that girls who start menstruating at age 11 or younger have an increased life-long risk of breast cancer.
“Fathers in the home delay the onset of puberty.”
Are you asserting causation or just correlation? Does your assertion apply equally to male and female offspring?
The study, as I remember it, asserted a correlation to the delayed onset of female puberty with the presence of the father in the home.
The correlation reversed, however, if the mother re-married.
Or they hide it in San Francisco because they know pervs there like them pre-pubescent.
Yes...even when I was a kid in the 80s we still had it.
There’s a middle ground. While I don’t support the Victorian idea that women weren’t even taught what a vagina was, and didn’t even know what it was their husbands were doing to them on their wedding night, I also don’t believe 9 year olds should wear miniskirts, makeup, and behave as they do today.
My own unprofessional theory is that it’s a lack of intellectual engagement combined with a surplus of calories.
Presence of a tiny amount of testosterone in the air perhaps?
I wonder if an older brother has the same effect.
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