According to the research, sexual abuse victims entered into puberty an average of eight months earlier than non-abused girls in breast development and 12 months earlier for pubic hair growth.
Young girls who are sexually abused may undergo puberty earlier than their peers, according to a study published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. The study involved a group of girls who had been sexually abused in comparison with a group of girls who had not experienced sexual abuse.
Excessive eating of many processed, high-fat foods, may be the cause of this phenomenon. Overweight or obese children are more likely to enter puberty early. Some evidence suggests that obesity can accelerate the onset of puberty in girls and may delay the onset of puberty in boys.
The onset of puberty is normally triggered by the hypothalamus. This area of the brain signals the pituitary gland (a pea-sized gland near the base of the brain) to release hormones that stimulate the ovaries (in girls) or testicles (in boys) to make sex hormones.
Hormones from the brain trigger the start of puberty. Hormones are chemical messengers that tell the body what to do. In males: The hormones tell the testicles to make the hormone testosterone and sperm. In females: The hormones tell the ovaries to make the hormone estrogen and triggers the growth and release of eggs.
Summary: Children who experience early life adversity experience faster biological aging than children with no history of exposure to abuse. Trauma was associated with biological aging in early puberty, cellular aging, and alterations in brain structure.
In some severe depression cases, this biological age was 10–15 years older than the chronological age. The study also found that those who had had childhood trauma were biologically 1.06 years older, on average, than people who had not experienced trauma.
They found that children who suffered threat-related trauma were more likely to enter puberty early and also showed signs of faster aging on a cellular level—including shortened telomeres. But children who experienced poverty or neglect did not show either of those signs of early aging.
One of the most common euphemisms and justifications for a certain type of childhood trauma is “growing up too fast.” It is a euphemism because it is used to minimize the pain that the person felt as a child when their needs weren't being met by describing it in seemingly neutral or even positive language.
Extreme stress experienced between ages 5 and 8 poses a higher risk of poor adult mental health, according to a new study of U.S. brain scans conducted by Duke University. Such adults typically showed less brain activity in the parts of their brains linked to motivation, positive moods and depression.
Chronic stress can lead to a variety of different biological changes in the body – ranging from cellular-level tweaks to altering hormone levels – and can contribute to many health problems in adults. And if experienced regularly by children, chronic stress can stunt their growth.
Children who 'parentify' often grow up too fast and miss out on important developmental milestones. As a result, they might not learn how to play or how to handle conflict in a healthy way. Additionally, parentified children often develop an unrealistic sense of responsibility and an exaggerated sense of maturity.
Shirtcliff says that many of the stress hormones that are released when children are experiencing psychosocial stress can also mimic sex hormones. This means that once puberty begins, it ends up happening much faster than it would under normal circumstances.
Multiple lines of research converge to suggest that PTSD is associated with accelerated aging in the epigenome, and the immune and inflammation systems, and this may be reflected in premature onset of cardiometabolic and cardiovascular disease.
Traumatic reactions can include a variety of responses, such as intense and ongoing emotional upset, depressive symptoms or anxiety, behavioral changes, difficulties with self-regulation, problems relating to others or forming attachments, regression or loss of previously acquired skills, attention and academic ...
The signs of trauma in a child include obsession with death or safety and issues with sleeping, eating, attention, and regulating emotions. Kids who have experienced trauma may also start to avoid school, especially if their trauma happened at school or is related to school, such as the death of a classmate.
Trauma-induced changes to the brain can result in varying degrees of cognitive impairment and emotional dysregulation that can lead to a host of problems, including difficulty with attention and focus, learning disabilities, low self-esteem, impaired social skills, and sleep disturbances (Nemeroff, 2016).
What is the hardest age for a teenager? The onset of adolescence, generally between 12 and 14, is the hardest age for a teenage girl. The hormones of puberty cause her to feel her emotions more intensely but she has not yet developed the reasoning skills to know how to handle them.
In Stage 4, puberty hits full stride. Between the ages of 10 and 15: Their breasts continue growing, and their nipples start to protrude. Pubic hair is still in a triangle, and there are now too many hairs to count.
The average age for girls to start puberty is 11, while for boys the average age is 12. But it's perfectly normal for puberty to begin at any point between the ages of 8 and 13 in girls and 9 and 14 in boys.
Definition of hurried child syndrome
A condition in which parents over-schedule their children's lives, push them hard for academic success, and expect them to behave and react as miniature adults [2].
One such type is parentification trauma, which occurs when children are forced to take on adult roles sooner than is appropriate for their developmental level.
You may have been parentified as a child if you: Assumed household duties such as cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, or paying the bills. Took care of the needs of younger siblings or relatives because your parents were unable to do so.
The researchers believe that increased stress leads to higher levels of the hormone cortisol, which in turn can slow or even stop the growth of new neurons in the brain which can result in permanently stunting certain brain regions.
Yelling has been shown in multiple studies to stunt the growth of the Pre-frontal Cortex, responsible for the development of logic & reasoning (among other things) and the Amygdala, responsible for assigning the right emotional responses to a given circumstance.