I think it's the food; we may well be poisoning ourselves. Liz Szabo at USA Today (my sad emphasis):
About 15% of 1,239 girls studied showed the beginnings of breast development at age 7, according to an article in today's Pediatrics. One in 10 white girls, twice as many as in a 1997 study, showed breast growth by that age, as did 23% of black girls and 15% of Hispanic girls. ...Not to mention hormone-disrupting chemicals in the food.
The new study doesn't explain why girls are developing earlier, but it did find heavier girls with a higher body-mass index were more likely than others to begin puberty early, says pediatrician Frank Biro, director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
A third of children are now overweight, and the early puberty trend could be related to the obesity epidemic, says Marcia Herman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A growing number of researchers also are concerned about hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment. Animal studies suggest that many environmental toxins can affect the age of puberty, although scientists aren't yet sure exactly how they affect people.
This is sad. A trip to the airport (a good place to see your fellows in the aggregate) pretty much tells the tale. I don't think the number of people sporting morbid beach ball tummies is a morals problem. Eating "morality" hasn't changed in 50 years; we've kind of let nature take its course the whole time. But the food sure is different.
GP
