Stress Leads to Early Puberty
by Candice Watters on 11/19/2007 at 11:02 AM
"... a stressful home environment really does impact children in many detrimental ways," said Dr. Julia Graber, in response to a study of families of 227 preschool children. The research shows a link between the home life of preschoolers and when they go through puberty.
One report said,
What they found was that parental support -- or lack of it -- may partially determine at what age young girls hit puberty. Specifically, young girls with families who were more supportive in preschool years tended to hit puberty later than their counterparts in less supportive family environments.
The researchers are trying, given their evolutionary worldview, to understand why a negative environment would lead to a condition -- early onset of puberty -- that itself leads to other negative health consequences. According to lead study author Bruce Ellis:
"In today's world, early puberty in girls is a risk for many things, such as breast cancer, teenage pregnancy and depression," Ellis said. "Effective prevention strategies depend on understanding the factors that speed up puberty."
It's a puzzle for the scientists, given their evolutionary worldview that says we naturally weed out negative traits in an effort to get better and better. This seems to follow an opposite pattern of survival of the fittest. Professor Graber had this to say,
"The body needs to be healthy in order to be pregnant, and stress seems to impact health negatively," she said. "What we're seeing is something that doesn't really fit in terms of what we'd expect."
What does fit is that we're not evolving to a higher state. We're fallen creatures in a fallen world. And sin has negatives consequences. In this case, parents who create a hostile, unsupportive, or unloving environment are likely contributing to the harm of their daughters. I think the more likely conclusion is that the growing interest in the protection of children, especially daughters, is exactly what's needed.
1. Anna said the following at 11:48 AM on Nov 19:
That is interesting. I know that the age of puberty in general has been lowering over the past hundred years. I wonder if that's because the stress of family life has increased across the board.
2. Andrew R. (aka Canadian Boy) said the following at 12:03 PM on Nov 19:
You've lost me. What does any of this have to do with evolution?
All I see here is an incredibly simplistic view of evolution that you're claiming cannot explain why a negative home environment leads to negative health consequences. How does this seem "to follow an opposite pattern of survival of the fittest?"
I'm completely lost.
3. obewan said the following at 12:03 PM on Nov 19:
Most reports I see suggest that eary onset puberty is caused by all the growth hormones in our milk and meat these days. I tend to believe it. After all, it is passed through right into the diet.
4. Jared said the following at 12:18 PM on Nov 19:
Earlier puberty during the last century or two is due to increased and better nutrition. Our body doesnt prepare to be reproductive until it has the adequate nutrition level. Growth hormones in milk and meat wouldnt cause it, since it is a sex hormone controlled process, not a growth hormone controlled one.
5. Erica said the following at 12:32 PM on Nov 19:
Also, different racial group reach puberty at different ages. Girls of African descent experienced puberty at an earlier age than caucasian girls. Not also in the USA but even here in the Caribbean girls can reach puberty as early as nine years old and their is not as stressful as in the USA. Candice, in college I was told that babies in Africa and the Caribbean start walking at 7 months to 11 months. Also, that Children of European descendants walk between 11 to 14 months. My mother has three children that walk before 11 months. It can be growth hormones in the food, it can be stress but it also can be stress and it can be genetics. In Caribbean country that I live it is common to see babies who walk before 1 year. I have two cousin who reach puberty at nine years old. One in the 1960s and the other in the 1980s.
6. Tim said the following at 12:38 PM on Nov 19:
The big factor that will cause much sooner puberty in girls is living in a house with a male other then her own biological father or brothers.
But the general trend toward younger is mostly caused by the same factor that has increased average height too: better nutrition. Not hormones in meat or milk.
7. P&P said the following at 12:45 PM on Nov 19:
This quote comes directly from the link Candace provided:
"Children who grow up in environments that are dangerous and unpredictable tend to grow up faster," he said. "In the world in which humans evolved, danger and uncertainty meant a shorter lifespan, and going into puberty earlier in this context increased chances of surviving, reproducing and passing on your genes."
Yep, this is evolution in action. There are consequences for the mother to mature early (e.g. breast cancer, depression, etc.), but it does enable faster reproduction, which leads to survival of the species.
8. Whitney said the following at 1:15 PM on Nov 19:
You're free not to believe in the theory of evolution, but please get it right. We don't evolve to become better and better--we evolve to adapt. It's not possible to predict which attributes will be most advantageous, which is why there is a wide variety within and among species. The public misconception that evolution leads to "better" organisms, and that therefore some organisms are more evolved than other, has lead to so-called social Darwinism, eugenics, and other pseudosciences.
9. Sara said the following at 1:55 PM on Nov 19:
If you accept the premise of this article, that early puberty is bad and therefore stressful, than this post is a circular argument.
I've also heard about how puberty is set off once a person has been exposed over their lifetime to a certain amount of light, and that because of modern electricity and, especially in cities, the perpetual lightedness of where we live, people begin puberty faster.
I have no idea whether this or any other theory is accurate. If I was going to make a case for reducing stress in one's life, I'll appeal to other, simpler reasons I understood better.
10. Jethro said the following at 2:22 PM on Nov 19:
This seems like a fairly poor and incoherent attempt at bashing evolution.
I'm wondering, Candice, if you attended Al Mohler's speech at GodBlogCon? At the end of that speech he urged Christian bloggers not to make snarky comments and instead to make well reasoned intellectual arguments. I fear this post is much closer to the former than the latter.
11. skp said the following at 2:36 PM on Nov 19:
I've read the timing of puberty is weight related. After a girl reaches a certain weight she will start her menses. I have neighbors with two differently built daughters, one, age 11 is tall for her age and big boned (not fat). Her older sister age 13 is slightly built and petite. They both come from the same household and thus have had similar upbringings. The 11 year old has started having periods and the 13 year old has not.
12. Becca said the following at 3:35 PM on Nov 19:
P&P,
That's just what I was thinking.
Species survival is linked to reproducing in as short order as possible. Earlier puberty leads to faster reproduction - not so good from a social perspective, but great from a purely biological one.
It reminds me of arguments I've heard made for prompt marriage and childbearing among Christians - "if we reproduce more and earlier, we'll eventually outnumber all those liberal, late-marrying users of contraceptives!" It's probably true - but it's an evolutionary argument if I've ever heard one.
13. Gene said the following at 6:09 PM on Nov 19:
Not a lot to add here, other than the study itself has a number of interpretive flaws. Perhaps people who live in less stressful environment (a good guess is that a lot of them are middle class or upper middle class) also provide better food for their kids, meaning less junk food and more natural foods without growth hormones, etc. It's just as plausible an explanation as the one given here.
Also, the writer shows a real lack of understanding of evolutionary theory. As one poster said, Darwinists don't use the word "better." But more important, such changes would take multiple generations to play out, possibly hundreds or thousands of years. To say that this story somehow shows the flaws of evolutionary thinking just shows seriously flaws in your understanding of Darwin.
Feel free not to believe evolution, but you make yourself look less silly if you at least present its arguments fairly and accurately.
14. Andrew R. (aka Canadian Boy) said the following at 8:20 PM on Nov 19:
If God really loves us, why do we have to go through puberty in the first place? :P
15. Chris said the following at 9:49 PM on Nov 19:
It's a puzzle for the scientists, given their evolutionary worldview that says we naturally weed out negative traits in an effort to get better and better. This seems to follow an opposite pattern of survival of the fittest.
Er, that's not what evolution theorizes. Evolution proposes that those species best suited to their environment thrive and reproduce, passing on those genes best suited to the environment.
You also make a common mistake. You have to realize that humans have drastically altered their environment without a commesurate (sp?) change in the gene pool. In only a few thousands years, we've gone from living in tribes of hunter-gatherers to typing on computers and living in the suburbs. Of course we're going to see things like this. Our species has not had much time to adapt to our changed environment.
Please, learn about what evolution theorizes instead of taking pot shots at it. You're really showing that you know little about the science.
16. Kathleen said the following at 1:28 AM on Nov 20:
I do not buy the whole stress theory at all. During the Holocaust, many girls who were coming of age to mature physically simply didn't develop until it was all over. Once their minds and bodies had a chance to recover, those girls finally began to develop, even though it was a few years late for some. Something similar happened with the boys. I also can't make sense of it physiologically, evidence aside. It just doesn't make sense to me that stress would induce that kind of physical reaction. Stress tends to make the body shut down, not develop further.
17. Alexandra said the following at 4:56 PM on Nov 23:
To all those who contend that better nutrition is leading to earlier puberty: please stop! It is simply unhealthy for a girl to experience pregnancy before a general age of at least 19. Women in many countries who experience the oppressive environment of radical male chauvinism die from bleeding (caused by tearing of tissue during a pregnancy in a young, and consequently weak body.) Their babies often are born malnutritioned (in a young, still developing mother nearly all the nutrients go to the parent. Very little of the food she eats goes to her baby's body.) and sometimes don't make it as a result. In a healthy adult, her body will nearly eat itself in order to provide for the baby (such as by taking muscle protein or calcium from the mother's body and putting it into the baby's) and strong adult women can withstand the pain of childbirth. A recent study by UNICEF, I believe it was, or possibly NATO, shows an increase in mother fatalities across the world, and so many of these women are actually girls whose malnourished bodies cannot withstand the trauma of childbirth.
And that's just the physical issues! Health of the mother and baby can radically decline when a man is not there to provide emotionally and physically for them, and young mothers rarely recieve this kind of care when they are pregnant unless they are extremely young marrieds.
In short, don't assume that early puberty is good because a girl might have a little extra fat on her than she would have a few hundred or thousand years ago. It's not a good side effect.
18. BDB said the following at 8:14 PM on Nov 23:
Alexandra wrote:
>>A recent study by UNICEF, I believe it was, or possibly NATO, shows an increase in mother fatalities across the world, <<
NATO?!? I don't think they sponsor that kind of research, given that they are a military organization.
Perhaps it was the World Health Organization (WHO). Here's a similar study from a few years ago from Save The Children in New Zealand:
http://www.savethechildren.net/new_zealand/newsroom/pregnancy.html
19. Becca said the following at 2:24 PM on Nov 25:
Alexandra,
I don't think anyone here is arguing that early puberty is a good thing! Some people just pointed out that it might be a negative side-effect of the otherwise wonderful fact of better nutrition worldwide.
And reaching puberty early does not automatically mean reproducing early, as you seem to be suggesting. Don't panic!
20. Elizabeth said the following at 5:49 PM on Nov 26:
The last article I read about causes of early puberty for girls named a number of the theories previous posters have mentioned, but said that at that time (a couple years ago) nothing conclusive had been found yet. As far as this study, it's interesting, but one study can't be conclusive. A number of studies would have to show similar results for this to actually be considered a theory. I think the biggest thing I've learned in grad school this semester is to take any news headline with recent study results with a grain of salt.
21. kaye said the following at 5:47 PM on Oct 9:
well i learned this in human sexuality and the reason why girls in who live in countries close to the equator hit puberty has to do with their environment..more exposure to sunlight encourages more hormones to kick in...its like putting a plant next to a window that gets lots of sunlight and putting a plant in the dark..i'm not surprise to hear from most of you that girls living down in the carribean hit puberty early..