Honestly, this thing really disturbs me.  I didn't hit puberty until I was 14, didn't get my period until I was 15.  Yes, I was late.  But 8???  Dear god.  I don't think its better nutrition.  Humans in this country at least haven't had to stave off starvation for quite some time.  Maybe it is all the fat, though.  I think its all the damn hormones in our food.  This is the number one reason DH and I try to buy as much organic/hormone free meat and milk as we can.  I don't want my daughter to deal with puberty before she's mentally still engaged with My Pretty Pony or whatever it will be in 5 years.

What depresses me is that changing this situation is so hard.  Its a radical alteration of business and social models that we have fallen into for decades.  I don't see a huge groundswell of public outrage demanding change.  Maybe its coming, I pray that its coming.  But it seems that we've had several modern versions of "The Jungle"--"Supersize Me," "Fast Food Nation," "The Omnivore's Dilemma."  And they haven't really sparked huge cries of outrage.  Americans have lost their sense of revolt.  We don't look at change that way anymore.  Now its more personalized--people think all they can do is change their own habits, buy organic or shop the farmer's market or whatever.  So real change is never demanded.  

Bleh.  On the positive side, maybe DD won't be as late as I was.  Maybe she'll fall into the old normal range!

I'm pretty sure I got my first bra in fourth grade, and it was overdue by at least six months.  It was my older brother, mortified at the sight of my blossoming bosom, who insisted my mom buy me a bra before his bar mitzvah.  So I guess I was nine to ten years old.  

At any rate, shenanigans, I'm not a scientist, but I'm going to throw caution to the wind here and suggest some of this might be related to the growing overweight problem.  A bigger girl has bigger breasts, and that might make what would otherwise seem like (again in my brother's words) "mosquito bites" look a lot bigger.  It seems logical, especially given the statistics for overweight and obesity in the African American community and the survey's results.

Unless they controlled for this in their survey?  I definitely worry about all the "stuff" out there in the air, water, food system, etc., but I'm wondering about the weight part of this as well.

that the cause is good nutrition. My mother was perfectly well nourished on three meals a day and she didn't get her period until she was 14. Interestingly in my family, I got mine at 11 and my sister also didn't get hers until she was 14. And I didn't drink any milk because I've never liked it, whereas she drank quarts of (presumably) hormone-laced milk daily throughout her childhood!

I don't know what's causing this and I don't have girls, but I also try, and I think mostly succeed, to avoid hormones in our food. My younger son has never had milk that isn't organic and grass-fed. Just seems like a good bet for all of us.

I'm 40 and periods came at 11 for me and at 15 for my mother.
I have 2 daughters and I DREAD the elder one who will be 6 yrs old in a couple weeks to be starting to develop boobs next year! At 11 I wasn't emotionally ready to have periods and really suffered so wouldn't want my daughters to go through it too.

Let's hope there is something we can do about this.
Thanks for sharing.

I was almost 15 when I got my period too.  And, my parents were Adele Davis/Shaklee nuts... very healthy.  So, I doubt nutrition is tied to it as well.  There are so many things in our environment that could be causing this, it's going to be hard to pinpoint it.  Processed foods, hormones in meat and dairy, chemicals in our clothes.  All of these things could be disrupting the endocrine system.  I'm hoping we find an answer to this soon.

I too suspect diet-based hormones (among other possible causes), though not the ones yet mentioned.  Here's one reason why:

rBST is invisible to human receptors - this we do know.  If it is having a deleterious effect on human health it's indirect, via what it does to the cow.  Which is possible, but with so many other possible culprits this wouldn't even appear on the first page of my list.  Human hormones are IMHO much more worrisome.  

There are two major classes of hormone. We don't have to worry much about peptide hormones because our bodies maintain tight control - we break down foreign proteins and rebuild the proteins and peptides the body needs (or thinks it needs).

But many hormones are built from fats (as are many proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory molecules).  Our lipid biosysthesis machinery isn't as smart as the protein machinery, it accepts whatever raw materials it sees.  Garbage in, garbage out.  When we hydrogenate oil we produce whole families of lipids not found in nature, so our bodies aren't adapted to handle it.  When a hormone synthetic pathway sees a building block similar to one it normally uses, it may turn it into something similar to the highly bioactive molecule it normally makes.  

How often does this happen?  We don't know.  Do the end products have negative effects?  We don't know.  But with highly bioactive signaling molecules you only need trace amounts to have biological activity; there may be new undetected hormones running around in our bodies.

Crikey, I didn't get my period until I was 16 and didn't really develop breasts until after that; I went from an A cup to a C cup in about a year (and went from 5'2 or something to 5'6". Oh, the stretch marks and shifting center of gravity!). It was painful enough being so late to hit puberty when my classmates were probably 1-3 years ahead of me, but 8 years!?

FWIW, my mom was a late bloomer and so was my sister. My aunt was an early bloomer and so was her daughter.

This is really worrying, because aren't certain types of cancers linked with early-onset puberty? Also, I wonder what this means for menopause; with earlier puberty, do you start menopause earlier or at the same time as is noted now? If menopause also starts earlier, this could have tremendous impacts on how women in future run their family planning.

I got mine period at 11, so 11 doesn't seem young to me. But younger than that does seem a bit early. But the I also remember third graders hiding from teachers   to make out with each other. Not me, despite my mother telling me we moved from that house in part because I was becoming a slut (at age 10).

What age is the right age to get your period?

Pthalates found in plastics such as PVC are endocrine disruptors.  They have a potential tie to sexual under-development in boys.  Could it be that they are also over-developing girls?  In my opinion, we should decrease our children's contact with chemicals in foods, toys, containers, body-care products, and anywhere we can.  Early puberty is a scary sign.

shows no signs of puberty yet. Not a breast bud in sight. She is 4'10" and weighs about 65 lbs, though, and I really think the weight has a lot to do with it. I was a skinny late-bloomer (period at 14), but I'm skeptical of the heredity as my mom and sister were each 12.

Last summer (between 4th and 5th grades) I noticed a lot of girls her age wearing bras since the style seemed to be to show the straps--yuck, and many of the girls, maybe half, actually needed them. I ended up buying some trainers for DD who won't need anything for some time to come, just so she wouldn't get teased. I remember my mom not buying them for me because I didn't need them and it was a problem.

I'm not a biologist -- but wonder if this would mean then that menopause might come earlier?  If we're born with a finite # of eggs, and we start burning through them 5 years earlier, either people are born with more, or they're viable longer, or we're going to see more and more fertility challenges in the early 30s.

--R