The average age of adolescence in the United States has dropped from the standard, biologically recognized age of 12 to 10 for women. Especially black and Hispanic girls go through adolescence about a year earlier on average. Experts tell DailyMail.com that the growing obesity crisis in America could be the root cause, blaming poor nutrition for increasing adolescence. Others believe it could be caused by violent childhood, and there is also the theory that it is associated with an imbalance of certain hormones. There are also negative long-term disadvantages, such as the association between early adolescence and the development of cancer – which remains unexplained at the moment – and the traumatic experiences caused by a young girl growing up more or less rapidly. The phenomenon was first identified by Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens, a public health specialist at the University of North Carolina, when she began collecting data on more than 17,000 girls in the mid-1990s. He found that the average age of adolescence was falling, falling to ten years, with some girls already developing by the age of six. Her findings have prompted further research into the issue, with experts in many fields investigating what caused the shift and what its long-term implications may be. Both the causes and the consequences of early adolescence, when a child undergoes this process very early, are very broad and can not be explained simply by a simple, single solution. On the contrary, the shift of adolescence forward could be the result of a variety of factors. And the consequences it can have on a girl’s life can be far-reaching. Rising rates of obesity could be the focus of early adolescence in girls Dr Paula Newton (pictured), an endocrinologist at the University of Maryland, explains that fat cells release hormones that cause puberty, which can help premature growth in overweight children. America is currently going through an obesity crisis and the children of the nation have not been spared. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 20 percent of all Americans between the ages of two and 19 are considered obese. For ages six to 11, where early adolescence is a risk, the obesity rate is also at 20%. Obesity rates correspond to this increase in early adolescence, and Dr. Paula Newton, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Maryland, explained to DailyMail.com that it may not be just a coincidence. He explained that fat cells have hormonal properties and that young girls who are overweight or obese will start producing the chemicals that cause puberty at a younger age. Once these chemicals enter the bloodstream and eventually accumulate in the ovaries, they will produce estrogen. Estrogen then triggers breast growth and other bodily changes that externally indicate that a young girl is undergoing a process of maturation. This could also explain why early adolescence rates have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. A study published in April in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics found that rates of early adolescence increased 2.5 times in 2020 and 2021 compared to previous years. Newton said her clinic also showed increases not only in childhood obesity, but also in prediabetes and type 2 diabetes in children during Covid – both of which are also linked to weight gain and unhealthy eating. “In what we see, and during this pandemic, there is more sedentary activity and inactivity, more snacks, more unhealthy snacks, more order,” Newton said, explaining the increased prevalence of these conditions. Covid forced many children to spend more time indoors and not play and exercise regularly as they would otherwise. Not being in school and instead doing virtual education also allows for less structured eating habits, as a child at home can easily eat unhealthy snacks all day – an opportunity they would not have in a school setting. About one-fifth of children in the US are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a growing crisis in America (archive photo) But Newton does not entirely blame obesity for the shift that experts have observed over the past few decades, and he believes that change may have less to do with changes in biology – and more with changes in demographics. The original research done decades ago was on a group of children who were completely white. This is not a representative sample of the United States, however, and every decade the share of whites in the country decreases. Research by Giddens and many others on the subject has found that black and Hispanic girls spend adolescence at a younger age than their white peers. Exactly why this happens has not yet been determined, but it does mean that a representative sample of more and more black and Hispanic children – as these groups make up a larger portion of the U.S. population – would naturally change the average age of adolescence by at least a few months over time. “I wonder if some of what we are recording are changes in the demographics of the population.” Newton speculated. For a variety of systemic reasons, younger minority children are also more likely to suffer from obesity than their white peers. This means that a growing proportion of the study population has a clear risk factor for early adolescence. Young girls with traumatic childhoods are more likely to go through adolescence early – and an early adolescence could lead to lifelong mental health problems Another phenomenon observed by experts is the relationship between the adversities of childhood, and in particular violent abuse, and early adolescence. “Adolescence time is multifactorial – there are many things that contribute to it,” Dr. Megan Gunnar, a distinguished professor of child development at the University of Minnesota, told DailyMail.com. Dr. Megan Gunnar (pictured), a child development specialist at the University of Minnesota, explained that children with severe childhood trauma are more likely to go through early adolescence. Research published in 2020 found that children who suffered from violence and abuse in their youth are more likely to go through early adolescence. There has also been a known relationship between young girls suffering from sexual abuse and also early adolescence. However, not all children with difficult childhoods go through adolescence, and it seems to be a trend especially with physical or sexual abuse. If mental adversity were the main factor in the game, Gunnar notes, then there would probably be many children in foster care who would go through early adolescence, for whom they do not exist. This is because abuse seems to affect the body at the cellular level, causing rapid aging and accelerating certain biological processes. Gunnar also believes that obesity is a key factor, and even more so than abuse is in the early development of young girls. In the same way that trauma at a young age is associated with early adolescence, girls who go through adolescence earlier than their peers are at increased risk of depression, anxiety, and severe emotional trauma from their peers. Dr. Stephen Hinshaw, a distinguished professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of California, Berkeley, told DailyMail.com that while early adolescence can be beneficial for boys, it can be emotionally devastating for young women. “For boys who reach physical maturity early… if something can be a slight protective factor against bullying or intimidation,” he explained. “But for girls, there is such a correlation, especially with depression, stress, self-harm, self-injury, which is especially strong for girls in secondary education.” This is due to the fact that girls who are older and more developed than their peers at a young age become easy targets of intimidation and their larger frames are generally considered difficult to use and even masculine. Dr Stephen Hinshaw (pictured), a distinguished professor at Cal-Berkeley, said young girls were put into a harmful “triple bond” by society in their adolescence. He explained that this phenomenon can be observed in the trends in mental health issues by gender. At an early age, boys are more likely than girls to suffer from anxiety and other problems than their peers. At the age of 11, however, the trends are reversed. Girls are more likely than boys to suffer from mental health problems. For the rest of their lives, women are more likely to suffer from mental health problems than men, says Hinshaw. This is due to the impact that adolescence has on girls and how society views them, he explains. In 2009, Hinshaw published The Triple Bind, a book that discusses the roles and expectations of young girls after adolescence, which he says is even more relevant today – more than a decade later. Young girls have an incredible task of excelling in three different areas in their adolescence, Hinshaw explains, placing them in this triple bond. First, they are expected to play a role at home. As a woman, they are expected to take care of younger siblings and other family members and do other household chores. There is also pressure from the media – and in recent years now from social media – to maintain their appearance and also be “attractive”, with harmful beauty patterns being pushed on American girls from an early age. Finally, it is also an increased pressure on school for all teens, as admission to a recognized university seems like a model for a successful career in America and even a bad grade in high school could cost a teenager the opportunity for future success. . This is unfounded for many young girls, as it is impossible to be the perfect look, the perfect housewife and the perfect schoolgirl …
