Overview:
Early puberty in girls is becoming more common due to factors such as stress, diet, and environmental toxins. Nurse Practitioner Amber Black from Village of Healing notes that stress can impact the body and cause cells to grow up quickly, which can lead to an increased risk of cancer. Black recommends educating patients and their families about healthy lifestyles and diet to prevent early puberty. She also suggests speaking to the youth about puberty in a less negative way. Black's research suggests that Black girls are more likely to experience early puberty than their white counterparts, which could contribute to their higher rates of obesity and cancer.
“We have a natural process of aging that happens with each cell,” Black explains. “Each cell has a program death rate or expiration date. When you accelerate things like aging, you’re accelerating your cell death rate, which means your cells are dying at a faster rate, which also means they’re trying to grow and develop at a faster rate.”
To decrease the risk of developing cancer and other health complications, Black typically refers her patients who show early signs of puberty to an endocrinologist. She also looks at environmental factors including toxic levels of lead and other metals, secondhand smoke, and signs of abuse in the home.
Black believes that a good diet can significantly prevent early puberty and chronic health conditions. “I had a 12-year-old [come into my practice] who wants to start using medication for weight loss,” Black says. “My thought was let’s just lean into better lifestyles and be more stricter.”
However, Black acknowledges that a lack of education can hinder patients from developing healthy lifestyles.
“I was at a food drive and they were giving away lovely fruits and vegetables, and I was standing next to a lady and she said, ‘Now, what am I supposed to do with these?”’ Black says.
Black also believes that we should speak to the youth about puberty in a less negative way. “In my practice, the young ladies that get their menstrual cycles earlier, they get this connotation that they’re an adult, they’re grown now, but they’re only 8, 9, 10,” Black says. “Although having a menstrual cycle is a rite of passage, having it early is scary, and we need to have better conversations and dialogue about it.”
Nurse Practitioner Amber Black from Village of Healing remembers treating two pediatric patients who started their periods at only eight years old. The average for menarche or first period is 11-12.
“With one of my patients, her mom also started her period at 8,” Black recounts. Mom also had a history of sexual trauma and physical abuse in the home,” Black says. “Stress impacts our bodies and says, ‘let’s hurry up and grow up.”’
An increased number of girls are continuing to be forced to grow up quickly due to early puberty.
According to a 2020 global data analysis, the average age of onset puberty for girls ages 8 to 13 has dropped by about three months every decade over the last 40 years.
Black agrees with this research and contributes diet and food access to this trend. “My mom and grandmother didn’t start their period until they were 16,” Black says. Black believes diet and access to food play a significant role.
“My grandmother grew up on a farm. So, they killed and grew their food, Black explains. “There weren’t a lot of processed things, like the colorful cereals and dyes.”
Black explains that a poor diet that includes high carbohydrates, sugar, and fat increases cortisol, a stress hormone in the body.
The stress hormone increases endocrine production, contributing to poor sleep and increased food cravings.
“When I meet with young girls and their mother or primary caregiver, I talk about diet and cravings,” Black says. “We forget that these kids have an insatiable craving for sugar and with these cravings, they end up gaining weight and have a different relationship with food.”
Black says she has seen numerous cases of obesity in her practice, and early signs of puberty are often seen in patients with higher BMIs.
In a research article published in 2024 by the CDC, among US girls, obesity was most prevalent in Black girls at 30 percent. Overall, Black children had a 24.8 percent rate of obesity compared to 16.6 percent of white children. Higher obesity rates could be attributed to Black girls going through puberty at a younger age compared to their white counterparts.
In 1997 , the Pediatric Research in Office Setting study examined approximately 17,000 girls. Black girls at every age had more advanced breast development compared to white girls. Breast development began at age 6 for 6.4 percent of Black girls and only 2.8 percent of white girls. By 8 years old, 37.8 percent of Black girls showed breast development compared to 10.5 percent of white girls.
Black says that starting puberty early can increase the risk of cancer due to cell acceleration. ”Girls are born with all of their eggs. If she starts menstruating at an early age, her eggs are expelled quicker than normal, causing the cells in her body to die quicker than normal.”
Black describes cancer as a cell that has gone rogue.