Every generation seems to enter puberty at an earlier age than their predecessors, but what exactly is the cause of this shift? There are certainly enough postulations and assumptions going around: increase in obesity among children, hormones used by meat and poultry producers, and now, a link to a high-meat diet.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the average age for female puberty was 14 years. In one century that number had dropped to 12.5 years of age. That’s 18 months in a span of 100 years, or about 1 month for every 5 years that has passed. That is a significant evolution. In “The Problem of Precocious Puberty” by Sherrill Sellman, an even more alarming fact comes to light: “One girl out of six eight-year-olds in the USA, Australia and Britain is racing into puberty. In fact, it is a pattern emerging in young girls all over the world. Reports of early puberty have come from many diverse countries and climates including Canada, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. This compares with one in 100 a generation ago.”
Investigating breast cancer causations led Dr. Marisa Weiss, of Lankenau Hospital in Pennsylvania and founder of the advocacy group Breastcancer.org to find that “fat makes extra hormones and can bring on puberty earlier.” (The same fat that “makes extra hormones, which lead to extra cell activity and extra abnormal cell activity, i.e breast cancer.)
The FDA allows the use of implanted hormonal agents for raising beef cattle, including oestradiol, progesterone, the synthetic progesterone norgestomet, testosterone, and the synthetic anabolic steroids trenbolene and Zeranol. Hormones are used by cattle farmers in Canada and the United States to increase the weight of cattle prior to slaughter. Some milk producers also use hormones, all of which is present in the products that stock your supermarket.
“It is very likely that hormone residues in North American beef is a factor in the early onset of puberty among girls in recent decades,” said Carlos Sonnenschein of the Tufts University School of Medicine at Boston (as mentioned in an article from the Organic Consumers Association).
A new study, conducted by the University of Bristol, involved 3,000 girls and reviewed their dietary intake at ages 3 and 7. Follow-ups recorded onset of puberty. What they found is that girls who had a higher intake of meat (and protein) at ages 3 and 7, were more likely to begin menstruation at age 12.5. The higher intake translated to 12 or more servings per week of protein.
While protein is a good source of many vitamins and minerals and is part of a healthy diet, the study results indicate that lowering the amount of daily meat and protein intake would be beneficial for female children. And given the amount of meat containing hormones, which would logically compound the problem, trying to find meat, poultry and dairy products not tainted by hormones would also help guard against premature puberty.
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