Time to Buy Your 3rd Grader a Bra: Study Confirms Girls Hitting Puberty Even Earlier Than Before

The Journal of Pediatrics has published two papers this week once again confirming that the average age for American girls to hit puberty in the U.S. is continuing to drop.

More than 1,200 girls between the ages of six and eight living in New York, San Francisco and Cincinnati participated in a study between 2004 and 2011. When compared to two other large studies done both ten and 20 years earlier, girls were found to develop breasts even earlier these days, now between the ages of 8.8 years and 9.7 years. The study found a small correlation with body mass index (BMI) but that could not entirely explain the continuing spiral downward.

In a companion paper it was confirmed that not only is female puberty happening earlier in the U.S., but males are reaching puberty much earlier as well.

The paper notes:

Companies now market “smaller than regular (menstrual) pads” with sparkling designs for elementary school girls and a genre of deodorants for children aged 8 to 10 with “younger, sensitive skin.” With each new study in the past 2 decades, we hope the age of “early puberty” has bottomed out. When each “new study” has been published, however, we find the trend toward early puberty has continued.

And BMI only accounts for 14% of the variance. Other factors noted include:

…certain intrauterine conditions and exposures, preschool high-meat diets, dairy products, low fiber intake, isoflavones, high-stress families, absent fathers, certain endocrine disruptors, the microbiome as it influences weight, epigenetics, light exposure, hormone-laced hair products, insulin resistance, activity level, geographical location, and others.

These changes are occurring so widespread throughout the population so quickly, they cannot be blamed on mere genetics. Outside factors are definitely contributing to this trend. The paper also mentions that these environmental factors and the younger puberty age is being looked at as a cause for increased breast cancer risk. Cancer risk in America is now 1 in 2 for men and 1 in 3 for women, with cancer rates expected to double by 2050.

While it is said without saying it, the majority of the early onset puberty causative factor list above can be summed up as the chemical soup we find ourselves and our children living in these days. It definitely has a role to play, especially in mega-corporation-run America, where our lawmakers favor lobbyists and their profits over people all the time. Like everything else, we’ll race for the cure (read: Big Pharma) instead of actually looking at the cause.

Looking at the list again, all those commercials marketing dairy to little kids makes one wonder if milk “does a body good” by giving third graders breasts. Many brands of milk come with an added dose of growth hormone as well. Milk is the sixth most heavily government-subsidized food in the nation, by the way.

Soybeans are the third most heavily subsidized crop in the country. The most concentrated source of isoflavones, a polyphenic compound that mimics estrogen in the body, can be found in soybeans. Soy is in all kinds of processed products on grocery store shelves, and while fermented soy has all kinds of documented health benefits, as Dr. Mercola points out, “Unlike the Asian culture, where people eat small amounts of whole non-GMO soybean products, western food processors separate the soybean into two golden commodities—protein and oil. And there is nothing natural or safe about these products.”

Clever marketing has convinced the majority of America that soy is good for us, period, regardless of whether of not it is fermented or what kind it even is. Thousands of studies have linked regular consumption of unfermented soy products to a ton of health problems, including breast cancer, infant abnormalities, thyroid disorders, impaired fertility and even brain damage.

But soy is big business, and the majority — over 90% of soy in this country — is genetically modified. GM foods require heavy pesticide use, leading to dinner plates that can be heavily contaminated with damaging chemical residues. Many widely used pesticides are commonly found to be endocrine disruptors, another factor on the list of early puberty contributors.

Speaking of genetically modified, subsidized crops potentially tainted with pesticide residues, the top subsidized crop in this country is corn. Ninety percent of that is genetically modified as well. Between 1970 and 1990, high fructose corn syrup consumption increased over 1,000% in the country. Corn is found in a ridiculous amount of processed foods, to the point that any family shopping at a traditional American grocery store and buying any processed food whatsoever would find it hard to avoid corn entirely. Diets high in fructose have been found to lead to insulin resistance, another cause for early puberty on the list above.

Livestock raised in feed lots in this country are fed largely corn- and soy-based diets, so anyone eating those animals is getting more grain than they realized. High-meat diets are also on the causation list for early onset puberty. The amount of agricultural chemicals used to raise these animals, including large amounts of pharmaceuticals and growth hormones, also has an effect on the people who consume these meats as well.

The list here could go on and on… The second paper goes on to say: “Animal husbandry has known for decades that growth and/or the age of puberty can be manipulated by altering nutrition, light exposure, exogenous hormones, and activity.”

In short, somewhere up the chain it is well-known the average American diet (and the 10 major food conglomerates pictured above that are ultimately behind it) is contributing to this trend of our nation’s children hitting puberty earlier and earlier, but companies are making big bucks to fill us full of crap, so it’s only going to continue.

Eventually when we’re all buying our kindergarteners menstrual pads and bras with cartoon characters on them, and the new trend is young women in their 20s getting breast cancer, maybe then something will finally be done to stop it. Sadly, history doesn’t bode well for that happening.