Puberty

Today, the physical changes of puberty occur during early adolescence, and there can be decades between the time children physically mature and the time they enter adult life. Because in traditional agrarian societies a person’s changing body used to be the signal to get married, many cultures devised puberty rites to welcome the physical changes. The secular trend in puberty has magnified the separation between puberty and full adulthood, the fact that menarche (and spermarche) have been occurring at much younger ages.

Two hormonal command centers program puberty. The adrenal glands produce adrenal androgens starting in middle childhood. The HPG axis, the main system that sets the bodily changes in motion, involves the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the gonads (ovaries and testes), which produce estrogens and testosterone (found in both males and females). Leptin levels and a variety of environmental influences trigger the initial hypothalamic hormone.

The physical changes of puberty are divided into primary sexual characteristics, secondary sexual characteristics, and the growth spurt. Although in females puberty begins with the growth spurt and menarche occurs late in the process, the rate and sequence of this total-body transformation varies from child to child. Because for males the externally visible changes of puberty occur later and the organs of reproduction are the first to start developing, the puberty timetables of the sexes are not as far apart as they appear.

The striking individual differences in the timing of puberty are mainly genetically programmed. African American children tend to reach puberty at a younger age. For girls, being overweight and having stressful family relationships are tied to reaching puberty earlier. These “environmental events” push up the hypothalamic timer, but strangely, only for females.

How children feel about their changing bodies varies, depending on the social environment. Breast development often evokes positive emotions. Feelings about menstruation seem more positive than in the past because today’s mothers are more apt to celebrate this change. First ejaculation is rarely talked about. Children tend to be embarrassed about their changing bodies when they are around the parent of the opposite sex.

Girls who mature early are at risk of getting into trouble as teens (for example, taking drugs, getting pregnant, or doing poorly in school), but only if they reach puberty in a stressful environment or live in a permissive culture, and get involved with older friends. Because they often end up heavier and shorter, these girls tend to have a poor body image and are more prone to be anxious and depressed.

Although, based on older research, developmentalists have argued it’s better not to move children undergoing puberty to a new school, there may be interesting pluses to moving to middle school. In general, our mission should be to provide nurturing schools to children at this vulnerable age. Parents need to talk about puberty with their children, especially their sons. We need to be alert to the potential for problems with early-maturing girls. We need to implement global guidelines for elementary school education that generally focus on respecting your body.

How children feel about their looks is closely tied to their overall self-esteem. Girls tend to feel worse about their looks than boys do, partly because society expects women to adhere to the thin ideal. Boys feel pressured to build up their muscles. The impulse to be thin may be rooted in biological forces for girls, but peer pressures and media images play an important role in this passion.

The two classic eating disorders are anorexia nervosa (severe underweight resulting from obsessive dieting) and bulimia nervosa (chronic binging and, often, purging) accompanied by body image distortions. Binge eating disorder (involving binging alone) was recently added to the list. Genetic vulnerabilities, prior internalizing tendencies, and low self-esteem put teenage and young adult girls at special risk for these problems. Children with eating disorders have low self-efficacy, and may cope with distressing feelings by “projecting” these emotions onto their body shape. Eating disorder interventions take varied forms, and treatments for these so-called intractable problems often do work.

Teenagers today feel freer to make their own sexual decisions, including whether or not to begin to have intercourse. While sexual desire is triggered by the adrenal androgens, and first switches on at around age 10, sexual signals from the outside world feed back to cause children to really become interested in sex.

Factors that predict making the transition to intercourse include, among others, race, SES, family and peer influences, and gravitating to sex-laden media. Most teens have their first intercourse experience in a romantic relationship. Noncommitted sex most often takes place with someone a teen knows well. Although the sexual double standard suggests that boys just want sex and girls are interested in relationships, both males and females are mainly interested in love. Ironically, our image of men as the sexual aggressors may operate in the opposite way in the “real world.”

The good news about teenage sexuality in the United States is that children feel freer to make their own sexual choices, and teens typically report having sex in a committed relationship. Rates of teen pregnancies have dramatically declined, although they are still markedly higher in the United States than in other Western nations. Rather than arguing about whether to teach contraception, educators should provide sex-education classes relevant to young people’s real concerns: relationships and romance.

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