Kids these days.  They grow up so fast, don’t they?  Yesterday, I had a birthday.  I turned 29, which makes me feel amazingly old and fills me with dread for the upcoming 30th birthday.  I don’t feel like I’m almost an adult, but chronologically I am.  That must also be the case for more girls in the United States, since more girls are starting puberty earlier in the United States.

When it comes to early onset puberty, girls are starting to even out.  By age 7, more than 25 percent of black girls have started puberty.  The two lagging races, Hispanics and whites, have puberty starting rates that have risen to 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively.  That’s an increase across the board in all girls in all race groups since the 1990’s.  The effects of this early puberty are still being debated from a medical standpoint.  However, the social impacts are clear.

“If an 11- or 12-year-old girl looks like she’s 16, people will interact with her as if she were 16,” says Dr. Frank Biro, lead researcher of the study and a physician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “Early maturation increases the rate of risk-taking behaviors and lowers academic performance.  It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, but it could.”

Among the causes of early puberty in girls are obesity (especially as an infant), mother smoking during pregnancy, and hormones in food.

Tags: puberty, girls, United States, US girls starting puberty earlier, early development, growth and early development, average age of puberty, starting puberty earlier, growing, unusual health news, medical news, Frank Biro, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

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