Studies Show Environmental Factors Causing Early Puberty in Girls
Last year, Terry Gross
of NPR’s Fresh Air released a segment
on the age of puberty occurring in girls.
Gross interviewed the authors of The
New Puberty, Dr. Julianna Deardorff and Dr. Louise Greenspan, who conducted
a long-term study on puberty, following 444 girls aged six to eight years old
from the San Francisco Bay area. Their
study found that, while it was once accepted that age eight was the earliest a
girl would begin experiencing puberty, the age for puberty is now decreasing,
dipping more and more frequently into the six and seven years-old range. However, just because girls are approaching
this turbulent time earlier in life does not mean that they are ready for it
emotionally. “It has been established
that girls are more likely to have symptoms of anxiety, higher levels of
depression, initiate sex and sexual behaviors earlier,” Dr. Deardorff told Fresh Air. Mature bodies paired with immature minds and
emotions, it seems, may result in a higher possibility of eating disorders,
self-harm, and even early pregnancy.
So, why are these alarming changes occurring in the
first place? The short answer is the
environment. “What I find concerning is
that puberty is a process that’s very sensitive to the environment and we can
move the timing of puberty, unintentionally, vis-a-vis environmental exposures”
Dr. Deardorff said. There are apparently
many environmental factors that can have an impact on when puberty begins, not
the least of these factors being the antibiotics fed to animals used to produce
meat and dairy products. Antibiotics are
given to animals to treat infection and prevent disease, but they also speed up
the pubertal development process, acting something like steroids or growth
hormones, and causing the livestock to grow larger and mature at an accelerated
rate. Farmers generally want their
livestock to be bulky and fat, so these drugs are fed to the animals in
abundance under the guise of being preventative and safe. The consequences of these antibiotics do not
stop with the livestock that directly ingest them. When children consume meat products that have
been exposed to these antibiotics, they are being affected by the drugs in the
same ways that the cattle are, which results in puberty beginning earlier.
Environmental pollutants also have a huge impact on hormone
development, especially chemicals found in plastics, among them Bisphenol
A. BPA is a synthetic chemical thought
to mimic the naturally-occurring chemical estrogen. Greenspan told Gross on Fresh Air, “There [are] several chemicals that may mimic estrogen
in the body… the culprit is called Bisphenol A, or BPA. BPA was actually invented as a medical
estrogen, it’s a weak estrogen, and it ended up becoming ubiquitous in
plastics… it’s also on paper receipts and in other compounds. The concern is that it may leech out of those
and into our bodies and may act like an estrogen.” When estrogen levels reach a certain point in
the body, it signals to the body that maturity has been reached and puberty may
begin. Leeching of BPA from plastic food
containers, toys, bedding, and many other synthetic fibers and products into
the body may cause the body to respond to this synthetic form of estrogen at an
earlier age, depending on the amount of exposure.
In reality, the extent of the effects of toxic
chemical exposures on girls entering puberty is more far-reaching than we can
comprehend at this point, especially when considering the myriad of toxins
girls are exposed to every day. “Our
study has not yet demonstrated that this one single [factor] is causing early
puberty… One of the problems with deciding which chemical is that there’s no
one smoking gun. We live in a toxic
milieu of many, many chemicals and it’s actually becoming impossible to isolate
one single [toxin]…” Greenspan said.
Despite all this, there are still many ways to be proactive when it comes
to limiting girls’ exposures to toxins.
Buying plastic products made without BPA is easier than ever before,
especially now that the chemical is being phased out of many consumer
products. BPA-free labels can now be
found on most plastic goods. Taking an
even more positive step forward could involve using fewer plastic products in
general, opting instead for products that possess a less toxic chemical make-up
such as glass, stainless steel, or wood.
Purchasing hormone-free and antibiotic-free animal products and organic
produce would be optimal for avoiding estrogen mimicker exposure via food, and
using natural, fragrance-free household cleaners would also eliminate exposure
to dangerous toxins. For those wanting
to address these issues at the source, demanding cleaner goods from
manufacturers and putting pressure on corporations and governing bodies to
regulate toxins can very possibly result in safer food and products for
everyone.
Puberty is already a turbulent time for most girls,
and it is becoming more and more common for girls to have to navigate these
changes at a much younger age. It is not
right to ask of seven year olds what, fifty years ago, was being asked of
fourteen year olds. This kind of
acceleration into adulthood can result in depression, anxiety, and the
emergence of premature sexuality. Cleaning
up our food and products, decreasing the amount of regular exposure to toxic
chemicals, and reestablishing healthier, less-toxic lifestyles can help
alleviate this problem for future generations. Because, ultimately, we owe it
to our girls to create healthy environments where they can grow up how they
need to, when they need to.
National Public Radio. (2014, Dec 2). How Girls Are
Developing Earlier In An Age Of 'New Puberty'. Retrieved from npr.org:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/12/02/367811777/how-girls-are-developing-earlier-in-an-age-of-new-puberty
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