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The Pre-teen Girl Mystery
Girls have been hitting puberty earlier and earlier since the 1950s, but new research shows the trend suddenly speeding up—and a chemical found in everyday items may be the culprit.
The concept of accelerated aging usually resides in the realm of science fiction, wrinkles in time, and five-year-old beauty queens. But growing up at warp speed is actually happening. Kids have been hitting puberty earlier and earlier since at least the 1950s—and new research shows that in the past two decades, the pace of this trend has picked up dramatically.
According to a study conducted by researcher Dr. Lisa Aksglaede and other scientists in Copenhagen and published in this month’s Pediatrics, girls are now developing breasts a full year earlier than they did in the early ‘90s. The researchers compared studies of the physical development of two groups of girls, the first group in 1991/1993 and the second group in 2006/2008. In the 1991/1993 studies, girls started breast development just shy of 12 years old. By 2006/2008, girls had reached that same level of physical development just before age 11. The more recent group’s menstrual periods also started at a younger age—about three months earlier than those of the girls in the ‘90s. Earlier physical development isn’t new—in the U.S., the onset of breast development for young white females is happening a year earlier than in the age of June Cleaver—but scientists are alarmed that the pattern appears to be speeding up.
“We are talking about girls who have not learned to make change for a dollar. They have limited knowledge and judgment, but they look older, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation.”
Why is this happening? Is it the hormones in our milk? The extra calories we consume? The chemicals in our environment? All of the above?
For years, the problem was chiefly attributed to our increasingly sedentary and junk-food-oriented habits, and that’s likely still part of it. “The changes in lifestyle in the past 50 years are incredible. The lack of physical activity and all the new kinds of junk foods are having an effect,” says Dr. Marcia E. Herman-Giddens, the principal investigator of the 1997 landmark study that was the first body of research to establish that puberty was happening earlier.
But body mass index doesn’t explain the Copenhagen study, in which researchers found that puberty did not discriminate by pants size—heavier and lighter girls are both developing breasts earlier.
“The chubbiness factor is not the whole story,” says Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author of “The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls,” a 2007 report commissioned by The Breast Cancer Fund. (There’s a well-established link between the early onset of puberty and the risk for breast cancer.) That report, which synthesized the scientific literature about the early onset of puberty, flags environmental chemicals, especially those found in plastics (called plasticizers), as a major cause. “We know we can accelerate the puberty rate of rats with plasticizers and certain pesticides,” says Steingraber, who is also an expert on the environmental links to cancer and reproductive health.
And increasingly, one particular plasticizer is being zeroed in on as Public Enemy No. 1: bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical found in food and beverage containers, including baby bottles and children’s sippy cups.
The National Research Center for Women & Families, a nonprofit that promotes the health and safety of families, is working on getting BPA out of such containers because it mimics estrogen, the growth hormone that flips puberty’s “on” switch. A report from the California Breast Cancer Research Program found that BPA developed as a synthetic estrogen, and the science is solid enough that a grassroots campaign to ban BPA is becoming a groundswell. Two weeks ago, Chicago became the first U.S. city to ban the use of BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups. Minnesota also passed legislation this month that will ban the chemical by the end of this year. Various other states and municipalities are considering similar measures. “The only question is how much this chemical contributes to puberty, not if,” says Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Research Center for Women & Families. “It’s an extremely likely explanation.”
Which prompts the obvious question: Why, in this age of knowing all we do about organic choices and the dangers of added chemicals, do we still have toxins like this in our baby bottles?
One reason is that the laws regarding toxic substances are governed by the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which many experts say is in desperate need of an overhaul to require more regulation and testing of chemicals. To that point, Steingraber says she thinks the European’s Union’s "green" chemistry initiatives would be a good blueprint for the U.S. to follow. “We should be detoxifying our environment as a health precaution,” she says.
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quinwithey
this has been going on since longer ago than the fifties because i had a history teacher tell me about this in 1972 and he was interested in the data contrasting the nineteenth and the twentieth century.. victorian girls were often not bleediing at eighteen is the idea i got..
i have been reading about turtles and visiting some daily.. the authorities suggest that turtles display no maternal instinct.. but turtle society looks pretty democratic and happy to me.. squirrels are doting mothers.. squirrels are mean..
nature,as a rule, is gonna wanna make more babies out of the baby just as soon as the baby gets fed up and hale.. out of our strange history we have fabricated the current wisdom that it's all right to sin if you are an adult.. it's pretty unsatisfactory.. bettter than it was maybe but pretty unsatisfactory
a while back they reported that plastic degrades into estrogen.. maybe that was discredited and i didn't hear.. but if this phenomena relates to some toxicity i'd bet on plastic
splinter
What?
heartofgold
um, this is quite the rambling comment.
spinozareader
Huh??
allonfla
I was born in 1976 and got my period and fuller breasts when I was freaking 9 years old. Acne set in months later. A few years ago I figured that something had to have gone haywire in my body. Right now I do my best to make sure my hormones stay in check and will do the same if I have daughters - I do not want them to go through what I went through.
hd57075
I was born in 1957 and got my first period 1 month after my 9th birthday. Made all of those movies we had to watch in 5th grade kinda irrelevant since by that time I'd been having a period for a over year.
listening
Hmmm....the '50s you say? Isn't that about the time that the baby food companies started selling baby fast food? When the formula companies convinced women that chemically filled, cow's milk based formula is BETTER than breast milk? Is this early puberty occurring in the countries that still encourage breast feeding?
docbets
Can't provide any science, but I was bottle fed and began menstruating at 15-plus. My daughter was breast fed and menstruated at 12-plus. An "n" of two does not a research study make, and there will always be exceptions that prove nothing. Just throwing this in.
I've read, often, that "late" menses is a marker for endocrine problems (e.g. Estrogen Dominance, Hypothyroidism) and for GI disorders like Pyroluria.
I wish they would decide WHEN a girl can start her period and then tell us, once and for all.
felixsama
I can only guess from the facts you present, that we are roughly the same age. As a child of the fifties I too was bottle fed and also began to menstruate at 15. But the bottles were still made out of GLASS, then weren't they?
Not to ramble like quinwithey, but my mother called it 'the curse' and I certainly agree. I pity any girl that has to deal with it from the age of NINE!
bigwurzz
quin: the article was all about plasticizers being the culprit. did you read it?
turtles and squirrels? sinning? RU writing from a room that has padding on the walls right now?
just curious.
Jessica150
My thoughts exactly.
Boxergirl
I was born in the 1950's and started puberty at age 10. I remember it as quite scary and was one of 3 girls in my 5th grade class with breasts and monthly periods. I have a young daughter with friends as young a 8 with breasts and girls starting periods at aged 9. That is an awful lot to put on a young person -- and the hormonal trials and tribulations of estrogen infusions are also very tough on these young kids.
quinwithey
my mind wanders in the comment box.. a little padding here and there.. no i don't read very close any more.. i get to thinking about the isabella rosellini.. i forget where i am.. i look out the window.. i see turtles and squirrels.. you are much more cogent and alert.. thank god for you.. but truly ii was distracted by the stange hysterical quote about girls not being able to make change.. that was what the article was about to me
baptox
Your reply is beautiful and made me laugh! Your mind is just perhaps more playful than most minds.
Yes, the quote about girls "not being able to make change" was a good one in the context of this discussion.
As the mother of a son, I would be interested in how these plastics affect male development. My guess is that there are detrimental affects on both genders, and the earlier onset of puberty in girls is just one of the more obvious and measurable ones.
docbets
Low sperm counts, I think, but can't provide any citations. Might be worth a look.
godnosnotru
In our town, some of the more famous campaigners turned out to protest a playing field going in at an elementary school. One of the leaders was renowned as a Feminist who used to be a bikini model for Sports Elevated. The trouble was astroturf derivatives which, although cheaper in school maintenance, mean a low sperm count in boy children eventually, by some usually unrealiable reports.
princeminski
Good answer. People get pretty serious in these comment sections, or else turn "Star Trek" comments into anti-Obama rants (or vice versa). The "making change" thing was the most striking thought to me as well.
docbets
Can anyone make change for a dollar, anymore? You know, when you start with the ammount owing, then count while handing the money over. As in, "That's six-twenty-nine, thirty, forty, fifty, seventy-five, seven, either, nine and ten."
Now the clerk stands there waiting for the total to come up. Or, stands idly while we stand idly while the machine "does" the credit card transaction. "Have a nice day."
Trilby16
OK, I am a fan of you. I agree with you totally.
godnosnotru
The reason we do not dredge the depths, or slog onshore, is because at some point for some purpose, something dreams. A cell dividing or combining makes an error, is errant in delivery to the egg, is mistaken in conception, breathes air, or flies above it, or thinks when the penguin be on traditional approaches to everyday questions icily plodding in nodding chorus - of turtles. It is delightful to see you.
judyjetson
My daughter started developing breast buds at the age of six. She was diagnosed with precocious puberty and put on a monthly injection of Lupron to halt the process. Rounds of tests were performed but no obvious cause was found. I'm not sure if plastics in sippy cups caused the problem, but she was breast fed and wasn't much of a milk drinker, so I resist that possible cause. She also was a very skinny kid, so body fat had nothing to do with it. We finally let her got through puberty at age 12, but she is quite short in comparison to her peers and me.
lmktacwa
its a trend. Not a be all end all for everyone. Sounds like something more genetic in your child... nature over nurture so to speak.
weekeg
I empathize. My daughter went thru the same thing (breast buds at age six), diagnosed with precocious puberty and put on a monthly injections of Lupron to delay the process. The injections were hard on her (my then 38 year-old sister-in-law had to take the same injections for fibroid tumors and personally attested to how hard they were on her and couldn't believe they would give the same injection to a child). My child begged to stop taking them, said puberty couldn't be as bad as the shots, so after about a year or so we stopped having her take the shots (she got her period at age 10) but I got my period at 11 so it may not be attributed soley to food additives.
LawFairy
"We are talking about girls who have not learned to make change for a dollar."
Excuse me???
If a ten-year-old girl doesn't know how to make change for a dollar, early puberty is the LEAST of my worries for her...
finderj
I know people born in the fifties who hit puberty at age nine. Fewer of them, though. Used glass bottles back then too.
Hhhhmmmm......
exploora
I know what I see, being in retail, is that kids are definitely getting bigger, and they don't appear to be as athletic or as interested in sport.
exploora
I don't think you can blame kids about the change as much, since most of them appear to be using a debit card, and the ones who don't seem to have very little problem counting change. I find it is the older kids working in stores, who have problems counting change, but I think it needs to be taught to them better than it is being taught.
scobyx
what "kids" do you see with a debit card??
exploora
Lots. More with than without. Just go to a store kids shop in and you will see what I mean.
blade87
Why are parents finding talking about sex so weird? We live in a highly sexualized culture; our kids are surrounded by it.
I can assure you parents: you may be shy about this subject, but your kids are not. They are talking to each other about it, full of misinformation. Step up to the plate!
docbets
Amen to that. It always mystifies me when I read or hear of this. Yoo-hoo! You do not have "The Talk." It's an ongoing conversation. This suggests that parents and kids are in fact not close, don't share information easily, let alone feelings.
Moreover, if we respected kids when they are small, they would respect themselves when they are big. When a baby stiffens as you start to hand it off to Auntie Charlotte, Don't Give the Baby to Auntie Charlotte!
No one has to be told not to let people touch them if they have not been intruded upon from the start. If a person is aware of feelings (which means they have to have been respected - none of that "You're not hurt," or "Where's your pretty smile?" or "Go tell your mother."), s/he is aware of distress when someone behaves inappropriately.
And to the degree a young person likes the inappropriateness, that person has been neglected or used.
goddess3a
You are exactly right, doc.
I've never had "the talk" with my 12 year old girl...we have been having age-appropriate conversations ever since she was little. I'm confident that she is empowered with the right information, has healthy body issues and high self-esteem....and I'll continue having those age-appropriate conversations.
djanimaequeen
I don't think the problem is that girls are reaching puberty sooner. The problem is that we live in a society of molesters. Yes I said it. Brittany Spears, Miley Cyrus. We sexualize children and make it glamorous that children act like adults. It's sick really. It's a status symbol for old geezers to date and marry young girls. Then we wonder why there are so many sickos out there that prey on children (namely little girls).
Some girls develop at a younger age than other girls, that's the way it's always been. The difference today are parents like Billy Ray the the Spears' who pimp their kids as sex symbols and the rest of the idiot parents who condone it by purchasing all the crap because there too lazy to tell their kids no. Whether they have breasts or not they are going to have sex because it's what society deems acceptable and there's no one around to teach them otherwise. What a mind job.
MetryJen
I think you hit on a very important point here - we've sexualized even very young girls. Every time I hear someone complaining about little girls wearing "revealing" clothes it makes my stomach turn. For starters, there's nothing like telling a girl to hide her body non-stop to give her issues about it later in life. But mostly THERE SHOULD NEVER BE ANYTHING SEXUAL ABOUT KIDS. I don't care if they're running around buck freaking naked, it's a KID. It's the grownups that have the perversion and the complex.
Jen821
It's interesting because I was born in 1987 and didn't get my period until I was almost 13. I started getting little teeny boobs growing in at about 12. However, my sister, born in 1996, started getting boobs at around 9 and got her period at 11. Considering we have the same mother, I would have expected us to get those things at around the same time. My mother, born in 1963 got her period at age 12, like me. I did always think it was odd that girls seem to be getting their periods sooner even than when I was little.
Jen821
Oh, and wait... What 9 to 11 year old girl can't make change for a dollar? Seriously... if your child is that old and can't count to 100, you need to be getting that checked out for a mental deficiency.
Thank you.
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