Early Onset Puberty Linked To Obesity, Broken Families

Early Onset Puberty (Photo: Time)

Early onset puberty is believed to be caused by hormonal imbalance which can be brought about by rising levels of obesity or the stress of family breakdown.

A recent UK study has found that the average age of puberty onset is now age 10, dropping by five years in the last century.

Scientists are unsure about the possible causes but hormonal imbalance caused by obesity is being suspected to be the biggest factor.

"Obesity is the biggest factor that we know of. [But] there's clearly something else. Is it environmental chemicals, is it societal stress? I would say on the evidence, environmental factors are not a major player," said Edinburgh University professor Professor Richard Sharpe, an expert in early puberty at the UK Medical Research Council.

He added that broken families and absent fathers could be triggering the hormone imbalance. He said long-term stress could also be caused by the higher expectations put on girls to achieve at school.

In 2010, a study by US researchers found girls of all backgrounds whose fathers had left home were 2.4 times as likely to develop breasts at a younger age. Many began at nine and some as young as seven, according to a study of 440 girls by the University of California Berkeley.