How young is too young to talk to children about sex?
For some parents that talk may occur earlier than they’d thought because many girls are now entering puberty at 7 and 8, says a study published in the journal Pediatrics. The new study says more girls are developing breasts by age 7 than reported from 30 years ago up to a decade ago. Conducted within the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Centers, this study focused on girls in East Harlem, N.Y., Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay area.

“In the second study, Dr. Mildred Maisonet from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and her colleagues observed that gaining weight quickly in infancy – a predictor of later obesity – was linked to early puberty in girls in Great Britain,” Reuters reported Monday.
And a review of more than 100 studies that was published online in the Journal of Adolescent Health found “overweight girls tend to reach puberty earlier than their peers do,” according to Health Behavior News Service.
Join the discussion about this research, which raises questions about environmental chemicals and how they impact growth and development as well as physical maturity versus psychological or social/spiritual maturity and breast cancer risks.