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Growing Up Fast
Members of the St. Thomas Boys Choir in Leipzig, Germany, practice a chant in rehearsal. Choir directors are struggling with the fact that young boys’ voices are deepening earlier as the years go by. In the mid-1700s, voice changes reportedly occurred in singers aged 17 or 18; today, the average age is closer to 10 (Mendle & Ferrero, 2012). No one is certain why boys are hitting puberty sooner, but some researchers point to a correlation with increasing body mass index (Sørensen, Aksglaede, Petersen, & Juul, 2010).
Wolfgang Kluge/picturealliance/dpa/AP Images