A US study shows that almost one in four black girls and one in 10 white girls have developed breasts by the age of seven.
The findings are the latest in a string of studies showing that girls in the US are reaching puberty sooner, with implications both for the social and emotional wellbeing of girls, as well as for their physical health in later life. Early maturation has been shown to cause low self-esteem and doubts about body image, as well as greater rates of eating problems, depression and attempted suicide.
It is linked to earlier sexual experiences, and later on carries greater risks of breast cancer. The researchers found that at the age of seven, 23.4 percent of black girls, 14.9 percent of Hispanics and 10.4 percent of white girls had developed breasts.
A similar survey completed in 1997 found the proportion of white girls who had developed breasts by seven was 5 percent — half of what it is today. The proportion of black girls in that bracket has also shot up in the past decade, from 15 percent in 1997 to 23 percent today.
Studies have shown that in the 1700s girls began menstruation on average at about age 17 to 18, though that might be as much to do with widespread malnutrition as with other factors.
Experts point to several possible causes of the declining age of puberty. Top of the list is obesity, as excessive body fat is understood to increase the levels of estrogen that play a role in breast growth. Other areas of concern include environmental factors. Prime among those are chemicals known as endocrine disrupters that act on hormones to change bodily functions.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics and led by a team from the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Medical Center, was based on 1,239 girls aged six to eight. The sample was drawn from three areas in the US: New York’s East Harlem, Cincinnati and San Francisco.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion