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A new longitudinal1 study found that girls are developing breasts at an increasingly younger age, which is part of a disturbing trend in the sexual development of our children. American girls (and boys) are hitting puberty earlier than ever before, and upward trends in childhood obesity seem to be playing a major role.

You may be shocked by the latest childhood obesity statistics. As reported by
Huffington Post:2

• 17 percent of children and adolescents are now obese     
• Childhood obesity has nearly tripled since 1980     
• Obesity among kids ages two to five has doubled over the past 30 years, and one in five kids is now overweight by age six     
• More than half of obese children were overweight by their second birthday     
• The food industry spends more than $1.8 billion marketing to kids each year3-and what they’re selling is primarily processed food and junk food

Data for the puberty study, published in the November 2013 issue of
Pediatrics,4 came from a cohort of more than 1,200 girls in and around San Francisco, Cincinnati, and New York City between the ages of six and eight.

Researchers found some cultural variability, but overall, concluded that girls are entering puberty earlier than in the past. Early sexual maturation is not a recent development, nor is it a phenomenon limited to United States. It is a global phenomenon, especially in developed nations.5