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Just last year a law was ennacted that rose the minimum age of marriage in Guatemala from 13 to 18. It's a good start, but its hard to enforce in isolated tribal regions, or in areas under control of drug cartels or local warlords
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Who are you to worry about these girls...they are much happier than you. Focus on getting well and fixing your own issues. You are embodiment of this Western need to impose their experience on others.
Some families are poorer than others, and the only means possible for a female daughter is that she gets married off. Allah has a system, and just because the West cannot see it, but sometimes stumble on it, is further proof you are in no position to be a social justice warrior for 3rd world women/girls:
Father absence linked to earlier puberty among certain girls
By Sarah Yang, Media relations | SEPTEMBER 17, 2010
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Girls in homes without a biological father are more likely to hit puberty at an earlier age, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
The findings, to be published Sept. 17 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that the absence of a biologically related father in the home predicted earlier breast and pubic hair development, but only for girls in higher income households. The findings held even after the girls’ weight was taken into account.
“The age at which girls are reaching puberty has been trending downward in recent decades, but much of the attention has focused on increased body weight as the primary culprit,” said study lead author Julianna Deardorff, UC Berkeley assistant professor of maternal and child health. “While overweight and obesity alter the timing of girls’ puberty, those factors don’t explain all of the variance in pubertal timing. The results from our study suggest that familial and contextual factors – independent of body mass index – have an important effect on girls’ pubertal timing.”
The findings came from the Cohort study of Young Girls’ Nutrition, Environment and Transitions (CYGNET), an epidemiologic project headed by Lawrence Kushi, associate director of etiology and prevention research at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. The project is part of the UC San Francisco Bay Area Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center (BCERC), one of four centers funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Early puberty has been linked to greater risk for breast and other reproductive cancers later in life, among other health impacts.
“Although the main focus of the CYGNET Study is on environmental exposures, we are also keenly interested in the social and behavioral contexts in which maturation occurs,” said Kushi. “These findings demonstrate that such factors may play important roles in the onset of puberty in girls.”
The link between father absence and earlier puberty in girls has been found in previous research, but most of those studies relied upon recall of the girls’ first periods, and few examined the contributions of body mass index, ethnicity and income.
In this new study, researchers recruited 444 girls ages 6-8 through Kaiser Permanente Northern California, and have been following them annually. Their analysis was based on the first two years of follow-up. They considered signs of puberty that occur before the start of menarche. In interviews with the girls’ caregivers, the researchers asked about the residents in the girls’ homes and their relationships to the children.
Among the girls studied, 80 reported biological father absence at the time of recruitment. Contrary to what the researchers expected, the absence of a biologically related father was linked to earlier breast development for girls in higher income families – those having annual household incomes of $50,000 or more. Father absence predicted earlier onset of pubic hair development only in higher income African Americans families.
The mechanisms behind these findings are not entirely clear, the study authors said. Evolutionary biologists have theorized that the absence of a biological father may signal an unstable family environment, leading girls to enter puberty earlier.
Another theory that has been posited is that girls without a biological father in the home are exposed more to unrelated adult males – specifically, the pheromones of these males – that lead to earlier onset of puberty. However, in this study, the presence of other adult males, including stepfathers, in the home did not alter the findings.
It is also unclear why father absence predicted early puberty only in higher income families, particularly for African American girls.
“It’s possible that in lower income families, it is more normative to rely upon a strong network of alternative caregivers,” said Deardorff. “A more controversial hypothesis is that higher income families without fathers are more likely to have a single mother who works long hours and is not as available for caregiving. Recent studies have suggested that weak maternal bonding is a risk factor for early puberty.”
Another possibility is that higher income girls in father-absent homes may be exposed to more artificial light – which has been shown to accelerate puberty in animal studies – through television, computers and other forms of technology, according to the study authors. The researchers also suggested that higher income African American girls may be more exposed to certain beauty products, such as hair straighteners, which have estrogenic properties that could influence pubertal timing.
The study adds to the debate of why girls in the United States are entering puberty at an increasingly early age. Last month, a study of 1,200 girls led by BCERC researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found that about 15 percent of the girls showed the beginnings of breast development at age 7, an increase from similar studies conducted in the 1990s.
“The hunt for an explanation to this trend is significant since girls who enter puberty earlier than their peers are not only at greater risk for reproductive cancers, they are also more likely to develop asthma and engage in higher risk sexual behaviors and substance abuse, so these studies have broader relevance to women’s health,” said Bay Area BCERC’s principal investigator Dr. Robert Hiatt, UCSF professor and co-chair of epidemiology and biostatistics, and director of population science at the campus’s Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“In some ways, our study raises more questions than it answers,” said Deardorff. “It’s definitely harder for people to wrap their minds around this than around the influence of body weight. But these findings get us away from assuming that there is a simple, clear path to the earlier onset of puberty.”
Other co-authors of the study are Paul Ekwaru, UC Berkeley Ph.D. student in epidemiology; Bruce Ellis, professor at the University of Arizona; and pediatrician Dr. Louise Greenspan, project manager Anousheh Mirabedi, and research assistant Evelyn Landaverde at Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s Division of Research.
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)So in a sense, marriage might be the one thing that saves that family...and the girls will be provided for with accelerated puberty and maturity by Allah.Children in poverty hit puberty much earlier. This is why
Puberty is an inherently awkward transition in which a child’s body matures to allow reproduction. Image: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
This article is published in collaboration with
The Conversation
01 Jun 2017
Ying Sun
Associate Professor and Visiting Academic, Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute
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Shape-shifting bodies. Cracking voices. Hairs sprouting in new places. Puberty marks a dramatic period of change for young people. Now new research shows children who grow up in poor homes enter puberty early.
Not only do they experience more emotional, behavioural and social problems compared to their peers, early puberty puts them at risk of a range of health issues for the rest of their lives.
The research, published today in the journal Pediatrics, adds to a body of work showing the cumulative effect of adversity in childhood can have lifelong physical, mental and behavioural repercussions.
However, the reason why these disadvantaged children enter puberty early remains unclear. And work is continuing to pinpoint factors that trigger the cascade of hormones that mark this critical period of development.
What is puberty?
Puberty is an inherently awkward transition in which a child’s body matures to allow reproduction.
In girls, it typically begins with breast development between the ages of eight and 13 and ends with menarche, or the first period. In boys, puberty begins between ages nine and 14, on average, starting with growth of the sexual organs and wrapping up with facial hair and a deepened voice.
But changes at puberty are not all physical. Puberty also triggers rapid biological and social change, and increasing risk for psychological health problems, like depression and anxiety, substance use and abuse, self-harm and eating disorders.
We still don’t know exactly what triggers the cascade of hormone secretions that, over time, produces these tell-tale changes. And “What triggers puberty?” was one of the 125 questions posed in Science magazine’s 125th anniversary edition in 2005 that still remains unanswered today.
In particular, we still don’t know exactly what causes some children to enter puberty earlier than others, although there have been many factors linked to early puberty.
These include childhood obesity, being born small for gestational age and exposure to environmental chemicals. Other researchers have linked early puberty with living with a stepfather or having experienced stressful life events, such as childhood maltreatment and abuse.
What we did
Previous studies looking into social impacts on the timing of puberty have had mixed results. While one Indian study found poor girls started their periods later than normal, a UK study found girls who grew up the poorest were twice as likely to have started their periods earlier than the richest.
So, we carried out the first study of its kind in Australia to see how cumulative exposure to social disadvantage affected the age children entered puberty.
We asked parents of 3,700 children in the Growing Up in Australia Study to report signs of their children’s puberty at age eight to nine, and then again at ten to 11. Signs included: a growth spurt, pubic hair and skin changes; breast growth and menstruation in girls; and voice deepening and facial hair in boys.
We then compared the family’s socioeconomic position – as measured by their parent’s annual income, education and employment – of those who started puberty early with others who started on time.
At ten to 11 years old, about 19% of boys and 21% of girls were classified in the early puberty group. In other words, they had entered puberty earlier compared to their counterparts.
Boys from very disadvantaged homes had a four-fold increase in the rate of early puberty, while girls’ risk increased nearly two-fold compared with kids that came from the richest families.
How could this happen?
Research on the biology of stress shows how major adversity, like extreme poverty, can permanently set the body’s stress response to high alert, affecting the brain’s circuits. This might, in turn, influence how reproductive hormones are regulated, so affecting the timing and trajectory of puberty.
Another body of research suggests the social environment can influence so-called epigenetic changes in our genes. These changes might affect the regulation of genes involved in reproductive development, switching some on or off sooner than usual.
Another theory is that in the face of hardship – for instance, economic disadvantage, harsh physical environment, the absence of a father – children may be programmed to start the reproductive process earlier to ensure their genes are passed on to the next generation.
Yet, we still don’t know exactly how poverty or disadvantage triggers early puberty.
Why this matters
What we do know, however, is early puberty is linked with a range of health issues.
For instance, in girls, it’s linked with emotional, behavioural and social problems during adolescence including: depressive disorders, substance disorders, eating disorders and earlier-than-usual displays of sexuality.
Early puberty also affects people’s health far beyond their teenage years. It places them at a greater risk of developing obesity, reproductive cancers and cardiometabolic diseases (diabetes, heart disease or stroke) in later life.
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Religion is disgusting and runned by pedofiles
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what a pile of bullshit.
have you watched the videos? the girls were FAR FROM HAPPY.
they didn't marry their 14 years old lover , they were sold to men much older than them who often treated them badly.
besides reaching puberty doesn't mean maturing mentally. i reached puberty at 8 , that's when my breasts started to grow.
and what big samples you see in these studies
btw there is a link between abuse , not always sexual, and early puberty too. stress somehow makes you become fertile earlier .. at least forgirls
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