Puberty: When girls grow up at age 7

What’s happening to little girls? asked Gary Liberson in HuffingtonPost.com. Evidence has been mounting for years that girls in the U.S. are reaching puberty at younger and younger ages, but a new study in the journal Pediatrics “is just plain scary.” By the tender age of 7, the study found, 23 percent of African-American girls have already started to develop breasts, as have 15 percent of Latinas and 10 percent of whites. And just as scary, “no one knows the cause,” though there are many theories. Obesity may play a role, as body fat can lead to the production of higher levels of estrogen, which triggers breast development and menstruation. Exposure to common chemicals such as pesticides and the plastics additive bisphenol-A could also be a factor, since these chemicals can mimic estrogen in the body. One thing is clear: In the wake of this troubling study, “there is going to be a great deal of thrashing around by different policy groups,” depending on their agendas.

The only agenda that should matter, said Delia Lloyd in PoliticsDaily.com, is the health of the children. And “there are plenty of reasons” to be worried about that. Early-onset puberty could pose an increased risk of breast cancer due to the longer exposure to estrogen, and it has been linked to “low self-esteem and doubts about body image,” as well as to eating disorders and depression. And in a culture that already “over-sexualizes” young girls, early puberty “can only make matters worse, as girls are prematurely forced to confront their sexuality.” When girls start developing at a young age, said Meg Meeker in National Review Online, they are especially vulnerable to bullying and sexual harassment. “And when third-grade girls look like sixth-grade girls, adults expect them to act older, which makes the girls feel crazy.”

Let’s not forget how all this might affect boys, said Meghan Daum in the Los Angeles Times. Imagine what the typical third-grade momma’s boy—still convinced girls are “bossy, slightly alien carriers of cooties’’—might do now that these terrifying creatures start visibly turning into “something even more terrifying: women. Or at least women-in-the-making.’’ Boys already lag behind girls in everything from scholastic achievement to social skills. Now they might be five years behind in reaching puberty. “This widening gulf of physical maturity just might have the effect of kicking them while they’re down.”

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