Early maturation related to overweight.

Reuters citing researchers stated that young girls who are overweight tend to enter puberty at an earlier age, adding to the debate about whether the trend towards earlier maturation is a cause for concern.

''A lot of people are concerned that early maturing girls might feel isolated and different from their peers,'' said Paul Kaplowitz, a paediatrician at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine who authored the study of 17,000 girls.

Kaplowitz said in extreme cases, they can end up rather short because if they start growing early, they also have chances of serious psychological or physical problems,'' Kaplowitz said in a statement. ''These girls can simply be monitored,'' he added.

Writing in the journal 'Paediatrics, he found an association between heavier-weight girls and early puberty among white girls but the link was less apparent among black girls.

A well-publicised study published four years ago in paediatrics showed American children were hitting puberty earlier than they did in previous decades, and that black girls reached puberty about a year earlier on average than whites.


More black girls than whites are overweight.

Other studies have suggested that the bodies of heavier-weight girls may reach puberty earlier because they have more of a type of proteins called leptins, which are thought to trigger hormone releases that cause pubic hair to grow and breasts to form.



''The latest ... Growth data, which comes from a large National sample, shows that both boys and girls are getting their growth spurts earlier now than they were 30 or 40 years ago,'' she said. ''If environmental conditions are influencing girls to develop earlier than they used to, we ought to try to find out what they are because they are not likely to be healthy,'' she said.