I still remember that first trip to the department store for a training bra when I was in sixth grade. I didn’t really need it, but my friends were all wearing them. It was also the year I started wearing deodorant, and a year later, I began menstruation at age 12.
My puberty coincided with the onset of the teenage years; however, hormone disrupting chemicals in food and plastics has pushed the puberty age to nine-years-old for girls, according to a new study.
Natural News reports:
The study was conducted in 2006 by researchers from the world-renowned Department of Growth and Reproduction at University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. The researchers found that among 1,000 girls, the average age of breast development was nine years and 10 months, a full year earlier than when a similar study was conducted in 1991.
“We were very surprised that there had been such a change in a period of just 15 years,” researcher Anders Juul said.
As a teacher, I experienced a student getting her first menses in the first grade. I was shocked, and I felt very sorry for this child. Six-years-old is too young to start developing breasts and to deal with monthly periods. Natural News continues:
This earlier age of maturation is even more striking when compared with the 19th century, when girls reached puberty at an average age of 15, and boys reached it at 17. Since then, the age of puberty has moved back steadily, until age 14 for boys and age 12 for girls were formally declared “normal” in the 1960s. These numbers were based on the average age of first period for girls and of voices breaking for boys.
The suspected cause of early ages for puberty is hormone disrupting chemicals, such as BPA, as well as obesity. Other suspected environmental causes are persistent organic pollutants found in higher concentrations in dairy and meat products.
I wonder if early puberty leads to earlier menopause…My daughter is nine-years-0ld, and I am relieved to see she still has a girlish body
This is so disturbing! We try to keep our 8 month old daughter away from BPAs and plastics in general. We also eat all (or at least mostly) organic foods and avoid everyday household pollutants and opt for more natural cleaning choices. I hope this makes the difference! I also recently read an article that found a link between early maturation in girls and, put simply, a lack of proper bonding with their mother at an early age. The gist I got was that a poor bond, and lack of security in the baby girls caused their bodies to go into a sort of survival mode which may speed up maturation. Scary and sad.