Circa 2006, I was 11 years old and in 6th grade. I remember a huge slumber party with an invite list of about 16 girls total. I grew up in a K through 12 school and I was the youngest in my grade.
This sleepover was for someone’s birthday and I remember it being fairly normal, no major chaos or pranks, all of us piled together, asleep on a big living room floor of a nice house. It was the year of High School Musical. The housing crisis was well on it’s way but we were deeply distracted by the Bethany Hamilton surfboard perfume and the release of the Nintendo Wii.
In the stillness of morning stretches and overused L.L. Bean sleeping bags, someone came out of the bathroom and anxiously shouted “you guys??? WHO has their PERIOD?!!!” Apparently, someone had left an overnight maxi pad in the small and very visible half-bath trash can with no lid. The room fell silent, all of us looking at one another with De Niro level suspicion…absolutely no one responded. Shocking really that “Someone left a HUGE PAD in the bathroom!” didn’t give a this-is-a-safe-space-please-speak-up-and-share-your-experience vibe. I remember my best friend and I whispering to each other as we lay on our stomachs that we felt bad for whoever had made a poor attempt at an under the radar disposal of their evidence. We reassured each other that we were both still awaiting (or rather avoiding) our Very First Period, and that we swear we’d tell when it arrives. Sweaty pinky promise - as if we were army crawling through high grass with choppers overhead.
I think about how likely and/or unlikely it must have been that only one girl there had her period. All of us were so afraid to discuss the possibility of it. In retrospect, the person who brought the Judge Judy vibes to what could have been a very chill morning of s’mores Pop Tarts deserves a karmic sting.
This brings me to this month’s topic: growing proof and concern around an earlier on-set of puberty. From cardiometabolic issues to anxiety disorders, this new wave of changes poses many risks to younger generations. A Femininomenon if you will… and I don’t mean Chappell Roan.
Back in 2011, a Pediatrics Review study found that in the United States 15% of cisgendered girls were beginning puberty by age 7, 27% were experiencing breast development by age 8. Highest for Black girls (43%), then Latina girls (31%), and finally, White girls (18%). In addition to this the average age for a first period has dropped to about 12 and a half years.
Enter Kotex, which spent over $23 million in research and development to target their new young consumer group, Kotex U, in 2011, aimed at girls 8 to 12. “Some girls get their period as young as 8,” begins a section for mothers on the Kotex U Brand website, with period products emblazoned with hearts and stars, as if to say this is normal and we can make your experience ‘cute.'
And yes, it’s true that girls do need products that support their unique needs experiencing puberty at this young age. But it is not enough to unquestioningly meet a consumer need—we need to look at the underlying factors that are pushing kids into puberty earlier than ever before, and we need to figure out how to support and protect them far beyond giving them the Hello Kitty equivalent of period products.1
Scary…but unsurprising right? Before we can even take note of a trend in bodily change at younger ages - there are products being mass produced and shelved at every Walgreens and WalMart in America. Imagine being bullied at the sleepover because you had plain liners and not the pink ones with stars on them? Kris Jenner works hard but apparently Kotex works harder.
Since the pandemic, many doctors are calling this “the new normal” but as I take a closer look, to be told this is normal is *please read in a French accent: how do you say…cuckoo bananas?
In 2005, a CDC study found that women born after 1978 were twice as likely to get their period by age 11 as those born before 1970. Before 1970, the average age was 13.
Dr. Aviva Romm, a Yale trained MD and Board Certified Family Physician, Midwife, and Herbalist shares: “Puberty is an urgent crisis, one that has ‘long' consequences, but that has been and remains largely overlooked and ignored by individual physicians, and has been ‘normalized' by healthcare agencies.
While this trend started toward earlier puberty began decades ago, we saw a significant international surge in earlier puberty onset during the COVID pandemic. Various studies have shown there's been roughly a doubling of rates of what is formally called “precocious puberty,” compared to the years prior to the pandemic, in countries as far ranging as Italy, and South Korea.”2
According to the New Yorker, during 2020, pediatric endocrinologists in particular saw a huge surge of referrals for girls showing signs of early development. In both Germany and Turkey stats show that the number of these referrals doubled or even tripled during the lockdown periods.
A 2022 paper published in Frontiers in Pediatrics analyzed data from South Korea’s national statistics portal3, showed that the number of children diagnosed doubled specifically in the stretch between 2016 and 2021, with a sharp post-2020 spike. “The rise in early puberty is a phenomenon that is occurring all over the world,” Frank M. Biro, a former director of the adolescent-medicine division at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, stated. Although there has also been a rise among boys, girls experiencing early puberty still vastly outnumber them.4
“We are in a great natural experiment at the moment, and we might not know the results of it for another ten years or more,” Louise Greenspan, a pediatric endocrinologist at Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco, said. “I do wonder if this is going to be a cohort of kids whose puberty was more rapid because they were in a critical window of susceptibility during a time of great social upheaval.”5
So how did this happen? Why is this happening?
Check out this PBS spot from May 2024 Dr. Shruthi Mahalingaiah of the Harvard’s School of Public Health shares where we’re currently at. Also, literally relax? It’s 6 minutes.
As a shock to absolutely no one: Climate Change and chemicals in our environment are linked to hormonal changes…
EDCs or Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals are agricultural, industrial, and other chemicals that mimic estrogen (and other hormones) in the body, and, as such, are associated with a broad range of hormonal and gynecologic conditions including early puberty, PCOS, endometriosis, fertility problems, metabolic problems, thyroid problems, reproductive cancers, and more.
These EDCs are in our air, soil, and water, and are even used in some makeup, detergent, and other household products. Studies have found major connection between EDCs like BPA, DDT, and phthalates with hormone surges. Other EDCs have been linked to a delay in puberty depending on exposure time. In 2012, the CDC linked a solvent used in some toilet bowl deodorizers and air fresheners to earlier menstruation – they also found it in the bodies of nearly 100% of the people tested in the U.S.
As if young girls didn’t have enough to worry about - let’s factor in Stress.
Stress itself can act as an endocrine disruptor. It’s thought that higher cortisol levels from chronic stress may trigger the premature activation of hormones and disrupt all related glands. Stress as all of us know can come from school, from home life, from social media, and bullying which of course poses a much greater risk to girls who are not white.
Enter COVID-19 (Stage right, downstage, the unprecedented pandemic is dressed in an old Hollywood robe and pink feather boa, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Miss Piggy.)
According to a report from USN6, during Covid, more girls began experiencing puberty starting before age 8 due to factors such as increased screen time, less exercise, poor eating habits, and impaired sleep. Another study published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society highlighted again - a significant spike in doctor visits. In Italy, it was found that upon pediatric visits girls had higher BMIs and admittedly spent more time on electronic devices than they had in the past. 88.5% ceasing physical activity altogether. Other potential contributing factors included social isolation, parental conflicts, economic issues, increased use of sanitizers. All accumulating into aforementioned stress.
It can be safely assumed that hitting puberty early than your peers can lead to an onslaught of risks later in life. Increased chance of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental illness. All of this due to many factors but the main concern is simply glands secreting hormones for an abnormally longer amount of years.
Digging into all of this made me think about how much pressure social media and this fixation/obsession with looking at ourselves and other people has brought into the lives of young people. I remember being told as a tween that it’s more likely to get your period if everyone around you starts to get it. Being the youngest in my class - I was always afraid I’d get it a full year before I was meant to - which I was told was age 12. I didn’t want to get it with everyone because they were all older than me. I liked my extra time.
I got my first period on Christmas Day - the day before my 12th birthday. All my female relatives joking about it being “the worst and best gift”. I sobbed to mom that I didn’t want it because I thought it was still too soon.
The ways in which a period at 8 years old would be a nightmare? Anxiety and depression is an understatement - it’s a farewell to being a kid. It seems like there is a deeply dark and uncontrollable pressure on kids to be older? 10 year olds using Drunk Elephant skincare on TikTok, Br*ndy M*lville pushing the comeback of low rise jeans. And yet, the girls who are statistically predisposed to these all-too-soon physical changes are likely experiencing all kinds of unwanted attention in school, in the grocery store, at their cousin’s bat mitzvahs, or waiting on line for a goddamn soft serve with sprinkles. Is nothing sacred?
Swift societal changes and the rapid monetization of early puberty is something to pay attention to. Kids need protecting and should be allowed time and space to figure out how they want to present themselves to the world rather than physical changes announcing anything for them. I hope we can sloooooow down. F*ck microplastics being in literally everything, f*ck the risks of unchecked screentime, and f*ck this newly electrified obsession with being thin. It’s doing real damage and the proof is in the medical journals.
Charli XCX really nailed it when she said “Girl, it's so confusing sometimes to be a girl
Girl, girl, girl, girl.”
Let’s work it out on the remix? See you on the next one!
https://avivaromm.com/early-puberty/
https://avivaromm.com/early-puberty/
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pediatrics/articles/10.3389/fped.2022.968511/full
https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/why-more-and-more-girls-are-hitting-puberty-early
https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/why-more-and-more-girls-are-hitting-puberty-early
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2023-08-03/covid-pandemic-might-have-pushed-more-girls-into-early-puberty#:~:text=3%2C%202023%20(HealthDay%20News),new%20study%2C%20published%20online%20Aug.