[Ben Mugged]

Growth accelerators in our food chain? Chemicals in our water? Seems to me that 50 years ago girls did not enter puberty until their early teems.

[roses of sharon]

Our kids weigh more...it’s mostly about weight.

[Liberty1970]

This sounds crazy, but Jack Cuozzo in his book Buried Alive actually has an extended discussion of this phenomenom. There is several centuries worth of data in the western world (so much for Victorian scientific prudery!), that shows this trend is not new.

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.

[MrB]

Fathers in the home delay the onset of puberty.

The racial disparity of this study correlates with that.

[Little Ray]

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.

[Centurion2000]

Hormones in the Chicken .... bar none that has got to be some of the most damaging stuff we’re consuming as a nation.

[MichiganConservative]

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.

[Sloth]

Scott Ritter approves this message.

[dangerdoc]

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.

[antiRepublicrat]

San Francisco's relatively low ratings may have something to do with the city's emphasis on healthy eating, exercise and limited use of plastics and other harmful chemicals.

Or they hide it in San Francisco because they know pervs there like them pre-pubescent.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Growth accelerators in our food chain? Chemicals in our water? Seems to me that 50 years ago girls did not enter puberty until their early teems.

Childhood obesity. The body requires a certain amount of weight and fat before puberty begins, and obese kids are meeting those conditions earlier and earlier in their childhoods.

[reagan_fanatic]

[KarinG1]

one in four black girls and one in 10 white girls

Racist study. Everybody knows there is no physical difference between British African-Americans and crackers, aside from the color of their skin.

[patriot08]

Bush's fault.

[devere]

I believe that it is the artificial hormones in milk that is causing this epidemic of early puberty.

Switch to organic milk and these cases of early puberty will go away.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Childhood obesity is one culprit. Estrogen in food products is another.

[Wolfie]

Bunch of tree huggers worried about “nasty” chemicals in the food supply. Dirty hippies.

[Lurker]

Three words: High Protein Diet

[GatorGirl]

I think it has to do with weight.

A girl hits around 80 lbs and starts developing. 100 and her monthly visitor starts coming around.

It’s no secret kids are fatter now. This is all unscientific and anecdotal as hell but it makes as much sense as any other speculation!! :-)

[devere]

Here’s a somewhat dispassionate scientific summary:

http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/Factsheet/Diet/fs37.hormones.cfm

And the bottom line quotation is this:

“Large epidemiological studies have not been done to see whether or not early puberty in developing girls is associated with having eaten growth hormone-treated foods.”

Personally, based on the fragmentary evidence my own eyes have seen, I recommend organic milk. Everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion.