Boys show signs of puberty at earlier age

The American Academy of Pediatrics revealed a detailed study which indicates that boys are entering puberty earlier now than several decades ago.

According to the study, boys are showing signs of puberty six months to two years earlier than it was reported in previous researches. The latter indicated that 11 ½ was the general age when boys entered puberty. However, experts warned that because previous studies were smaller or used different approaches, it is difficult to estimate how much earlier boys might be developing.

The study reflects the results from a research on girls, which has now indicated that they are showing breast development earlier than in the past.

The study did not make an attempt to establish what might be causing earlier puberty, even though it dwelled upon changes in diet, less physical activity and other environmental factors. According to experts, without further research, it is still unclear what it should mean for boys.

The results of the study are expected to set a standard for being very attentive to puberty in boys and being mindful that they’re developing earlier. The new findings are going to be very useful to pediatricians and urologists.

The new study also showed that African-American boys entered puberty earlier than whites and Hispanics. Other studies have shown that this also applies to African-American girls. According to experts, that difference is most likely caused by the role of genes in puberty.

On average, black boys participating in the study showed signs of puberty, when being a little older than 9, while white and Hispanic boys were a little older than 10.

Several experts announced that the study should not be considered to be a cause for alarm, but rather as a way to help parents and doctors estimate what to be aware of in boys’ development and when to start conversations about social issues.

For the study, researchers assigned about 200 pediatricians in 41 states to record information on 4,131 healthy boys ages 6 to 16 during their well-child exams.

Doctors who took part in the study also evaluated boys using the Tanner scale. This is a five-stage ranking system taken from a 40-year-old British research. Anyway, Tanner may be the textbook benchmark, but more and more doctors consider it obsolete since it involved only 228 white boys in juvenile detention in London and evaluated them from photographs.

The study’s lead author is Marcia E. Herman-Giddens, who is a child and maternal health specialist at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She said that she initially proposed an additional measure used in Europe, that is identifying through urinalysis, or by asking, if boys had already begun to ejaculate. However, she noted that urinalysis would have made the study more expensive, and her colleagues reviewing the proposal disagreed since a child could find the question quite difficult to understand.

Dr. Herman-Giddens was the leader of a large study on girls’ puberty in 1997. Back then, the conclusion that girls were developing earlier caused great controversy. However, nowadays experts generally agree that subsequent research has indicated breast development as young as 7 or 8. According to experts, puberty is beginning sooner but lasting longer, and different physiological processes are influencing breast development and menstruation.

As far as girls are concerned, there is also scientific consensus that heavier girls enter puberty earlier, which is quite logical since body fat is tied to estrogen production.

In the study of boys, weight was not analyzed so intensively. However, the heaviest boys were developing earlier than the skinny boys. Experts noted it is unclear if weight gain causes puberty or is a mere consequence.

• Additional reading: Why parents let their children to become overweight?

According to some experts, while earlier development in girls can be worrisome since girls may be treated as more socially mature than they actually are, implications for boys are uncertain.

Dr. William P. Adelman is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and a member of the Academy of Pedatrics committee on adolescents. He said that with girls, the first signs are obvious, and social ramifications are negative. However, early-maturing boys tend to be called on more in school and usually are better athletes.

According to Dr. Frank M. Biro, a puberty researcher and director of adolescent medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, there are some common implications for both girls and boys. He noted that if kids are looking older, it means that parents should be monitoring them even more closely because all children need a hand.