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Tara was just seven when puberty struck – shockingly, cases like hers are becoming all too common – so what’s to blame?
By WINIFRED ROBINSON
Last updated at 7:51 AM on 17th June 2010
The first reports of a steep drop in the age of puberty began to emerge from the U.S. just over a decade ago – around the time my son Tony was born – but I didn’t take too much notice back then.
If it was a real problem, I reasoned, I would know someone with a child in this situation and back then I did not.
As with so many other health stories, sceptical scientists quickly stepped in to criticise the methods used in the American studies, while others blamed the lifestyle there – too much obesity, too much sitting in front of televisions and computer screens and too much hormone-treated beef.
It couldn’t, I thought, happen to us. I could not have been more wrong. A study at the University of Copenhagen by some of the most respected experts in this field – and the first of its kind in Western Europe – has concluded the age at which girls and boys begin to mature physically has dropped in a short space of time.
In girls, the age of puberty is down by a whole year – from 11 to ten. For boys, the change is less stark, but it’s nonetheless real – they now start puberty around four months earlier than they once did, on average aged ten rather than 11. ..Continue reading
