Childhood Obesity Brings on Early Puberty?
An intriguing study to be published in Pediatrics links childhood obesity in girls to the onset of their first period.
Apparently onset of puberty is down 2.5 months from what it was 25-30 years ago.
There are two theories as to the correlation between weight and onset of puberty:
One theory holds that excess body fat is a kind of reproductive signal that a girl is now healthy enough to sustain a pregnancy. The recent discovery of a fat-cell hormone called leptin "suggests a mechanism by which that might actually happen," Must said.The second theory rests on skeletal maturity. "We know that children who are overweight have advanced bone development -- they grow faster in all ways, and they are usually taller than their non-overweight peers," Must said. "That same sort of growth promotion could be linked to the early onset of the maturational change."
It is important to note that the researchers did not feel that there was an opposite relationship - i.e. early menarche does not imply a tendency towards obesity in adulthood.
Written By J. Foster
While this may be true as a trend, I can personally testify that even though I was an overweight child I was one of the last girls in my grade to get my period. It didn't come until high school, about a month or two before I turned 14. It really bothered me at the time because I wanted to be like everyone else and I kept waiting and waiting for it to happen, but in retrospect I just saved myself a couple years of cramps :)
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