Do you think children are developing faster now than they did 20 years ago?
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stevenb (
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April 20th, 2008
from iPhone
I don’t know if it is makeup, clothes, diet, or what, but when you look at school pictures of my brothers and my classes in elementary school and middle school, the kids did not look as developed as they do now. Mostly the girls. Was is just a simpler time? Is it just makeup and hair, or is there really a difference in how fast kids physically mature now? 16 year old now look like 20 year old when I was young I swear.
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11 Answers
It’s the accessibility of everything. Consumer goods and information.
All of the above… I suspect that diet does play a part, but our culture is obsessed with looking like 20-something… so you will find that many of those 16-year-old’s mom’s are wearing the same clothes and hairstyles. My son is about to turn 17, and for years I’ve been thanking him for being a boy.
there some research floating around (that I can’t quote) that suggests changes in diet, specifically intake of fats for girls and proteins for boys, over the last 25 years is speeding up development in adolescents.
little kids have iphones and that weirds me out. I saw a big group of elementry and jr. highers at the movies a couple weeks ago and they all pretty much had iphones or some kind of smart phone and were texting like crazy.
weirds me out. Just sayin…
nonorganic milk is making puberty come scarily early in girls.
My brother always buys organic milk for his little girl (3 in two weeks). He says that’s why. I thought, good for you, but won’t she feel left behind and like a late bloomer if all the other girls are developing at 12 and she isn’t?
Twelve is fine, i’ve seen girls getting their periods at nine. Creepiest thing ever.
My wife works for an obgyn and sees 11 year old pregnant. Even creepier is the mothers that don’t seem concerned.
Ever seen a european suit of armor from the middle ages, like at Neuschwanstein? Those little dudes seemed to barely reach 5 ft tall. And those were the big, mean jocks!
Seems like we’ve been getting bigger (i.e. developing faster) as a race for a while now. And I think @Del nails the growing concern about what exactly has gotten into our food supply in recent times.
Yeahhh… there is NO way that my children will be given anything to eat that was pumped with hormones (when my children… yknow…. exist). That’s just not a wise decision.
delirium exactly, pumped with hormones.
Chicken and Beef Farmers are paid by the pound. The hormones make them grow faster and bigger. They make more money faster. These hormones are still there when we eat them.
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