Puberty in Girls

Some US girls starting puberty as young as age seven.
The Los Angeles Times (8/9, Roan) reports that, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics, "almost 25% of African American girls have reached a stage of breast development marking the onset of puberty by age seven, as had almost 15% of Latina girls and more than 10% of white girls." Notably, "those percentages are significantly higher than in 1997, when a landmark study first reported that girls were beginning puberty much younger than they had in the mid-20th century. In that study, the rate of girls who had begun puberty at age seven was, on average, 5% for whites, compared with 10.4% in the new study."
"Increased rates of obesity are thought to play a major role, because body fat can produce sex hormones," the New York Times (8/9, A11, Grady) reports.
Focusing on the long-term health implications of early-onset puberty, USA Today (8/9, Szabo) reports that as adults, girls who go through puberty earlier "are at greater risk for breast and endometrial cancers, possibly because they have a longer lifetime exposure to estrogen."
The Wall Street Journal (8/9, A4, Wang) explores the psychological ramifications of early puberty, reporting that some experts believe girls who mature too early may be teased by their peers or become subject to unwanted attention from other children or adults. Girls who look older than their years may also be held to age-inappropriate standards of behavior.
Delving into what may be causing girls to enter puberty earlier, Time (8/9, Park) points out that "environmental exposures to chemicals -- including pesticides and endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as bisphenol A, commonly found in plastics, and phthalates, which are contained in many personal care products -- could also play a role" in the early onset of puberty, the study's authors theorize.
According to CNN /Health.com (8/9, Gardner), the study was funded by the "National Institutes of Health...as part of a larger investigation into the environmental factors that contribute to breast cancer risk." MedPage Today (8/9, Neale) also covers the story.