Health Report: Too much too young?
Puberty for girls and boys is happening earlier and earlier, yet medicine has no hard and fast reasons for the causes. Nicola Gill investigates the effect on today's children...
For most little girls at
primary school, deciding which party dress to wear or learning to
ride a bike is their biggest worry. But for six-year-old Chloe
Perry, coping with monthly mood swings and getting to grips with
sanitary towels is her priority. Chloe started puberty when she was
four years old, which might seem extraordinary. Yet for more
mothers and their young daughters, so-called precocious puberty and
the problems it can bring are becoming a way of life.
Only a few generations ago in Victorian times, the average age
of puberty for girls was 15, and for boys, 16. By the 1960s, the
average age of 12 years and 6 months for a white European
girl's first period was set by a study of 200 girls in a
British orphanage - similar studies found that 14 was the average
age of sexual maturity for boys.
But in the last 20 years the typical age of puberty has slid
inexorably downwards. Now, according to researchers, one in six
girls under ten has begun her periods, while many others are
starting at eight, seven, or even younger. As normal puberty takes
around four years, that means thousands of girls of four and five
years old are showing signs of early puberty now. There is also
evidence that puberty for boys is starting earlier.
"Practitioners are seeing far greater numbers of children with advanced sexual development," says Professor Ilpo Huhteniemi, chair of reproductive biology at Imperial College, London. "The questions are: what is causing it, what are the long-term implications and what do we do about it?"
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