Stress 'fast tracks' puberty
Youngsters are reaching physical puberty earlier than ever before, claim scientists
Also In The News
|
Jose Mourinho dedicated Chelsea's win against Barcelona to the bereaved family of a Chelsea member of staff who was the victim in a road accident. |  |
Thursday, 19, Oct 2006 08:25
Stress in young people, such as that prompted by parental separation or absentee fathers, can "fast track" puberty, scientists have claimed.
Researchers from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool's John Moores University say that improved childhood health and nutrition are partly responsible for a steady fall over the past 150 years in the age at which puberty begins in developed countries.
But they also claim that stress is a "puberty accelerator", arguing that disruption amongst modern families is one of the most "effective stressors".
Writing in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the researchers cite the absence of fathers, rising divorce rates and increasing numbers of single-parent families, as causes of stress in young people which are prompting the onset of puberty at an earlier age.
"The sum effect of these changes has been relatively recent reductions in the age of puberty onset," the researchers claim.
"However, these have not been matched by efforts to socially develop young people at an equally accelerated rate, leaving an increasing gap between physical puberty and social puberty, the age at which people are mentally, educationally and legally equipped to function as adults in modern societies," they warn.
The article concludes that a growing disparity between the rate of "physical" and "social" puberty is resulting in "ill-informed health damaging behaviour" amongst young adults, including unprotected sex, substance abuse, self harm, violence and bullying.
As a result of the gap between their physical and social development, teenagers are also finding it more difficult to understand their role in society, it is claimed.
In addition, while society in general often ignores the onset of early puberty, researchers claim that the commercial sector has embraced the trend, with magazines, television and radio mediums increasingly using sexual imagery to market themselves at teenagers.
They claim that such advertising only adds to the confusion of youngsters and warn that responding to earlier puberty means "moving away from societal attitudes that equate protecting children with regarding them as firmly ensconced in childhood long after their physical journey into adulthood has begun".