Puberty

Obesity and development

Health Day News reports on a U.S. study that links childhood obesity to breast development in young girls, as young as 9 years old.

I’m no scientist, but it doesn’t take one to deduce that breasts are FAT! So when you develop excess fat, chances are you get bigger boobs.

The study monitored the weight gain of 354 girls from 10 different regions across America. It found that the girls with higher BMI (body mass indexes) went through puberty at an earlier age. A correlation between obesity and early onset of puberty had previously been observed, but it was unclear which was the causal factor. This longitudinal study, published in the journal Pediatrics, followed girls from a young age and established that weight gain did in fact precede and contribute to early puberty. Higher BMI at all ages was found to correlate with early puberty, and in particular the study found that early puberty in girls could be predicted by above average weight gain between the ages of 3 and 5.

Another possible factor in these observations is that overweight girls tend to be less active. Regular physical activity can delay puberty.

In addition to early breast development, overweight girls in the study had an 80 percent chance of starting menstruation early, before age 12. Early maturation holds social and emotional consequences for young girls, including behavioral and academic problems, depression and earlier alcohol use, as well as increasing the risk of reproductive cancers later in life.

Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Michigan, said, “[This] provides additional evidence that growing rates of obesity among children in this country may be contributing to the trend of early maturation in girls.” The study is significant, especially since we’ve been seeing girls entering puberty at younger and younger ages compared to 30 years ago.