Can Food Choices Affect Puberty?

Have you noticed that children seem to be maturing earlier than they did in the past?  Turns out that you’re not imagining it.  Recent scientific analyses have discovered this too.  The question is….why?

Puberty is the transition between childhood and adulthood which signals the onset of female reproductive capacity.  Age at menarche, the age when menstruation first occurs, is a late event during puberty. (1)  An interesting paper from 2016 examined changes in the age at menarche over the years.  Its report illuminated a considerable evolution in the age at menarche in industrialized countries, from 17 years of age in 1840 to 12 years of age by the year 2000. (2)

In 1996, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health started the GUTS (Growing Up Today Study).  They enrolled children of women who had taken part in the Nurses’ Health Study II and a total of 16,882 girls and boys between the ages of 9 and 14 became the first participants.  In 2004 an additional 10,923 children between the ages of 10 and 17 were added. Their investigations set out to evaluate the factors that influence weight change and health throughout the life cycle.  The children who took part in the GUT Study are now adults but the research is ongoing and the data collected is helping other scientists examine health topics such as reproductive health, mental health and heart disease.  From this analysis nearly 100 articles about health outcomes throughout a lifetime have been published.   (3)

 

 

Results of one of the studies initiated through the GUT Study were announced in June 2025.  This inquiry set out to analyze how diet and exercise influence the age at menarche in young females.  In this study, dietary patterns of the 7530 participants were collected before the start of puberty to establish a baseline of eating habits and then the children were followed as they went through puberty and grew older.  Two contrasting dietary indices, the AHEI and the EDIP, were used to assess the relationship between the diet of each individual and their age at menarche.  Results were reported with and without adjustments for BMI and height.  (4)

• The AHEI (Alternative Healthy Eating Index) highlights overall diet quality by assigning higher scores to diets rich in vegetables, legumes and whole grains and penalizing those higher in red meat and trans fats.
• The EDIP (Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Pattern) focuses in on the potential of a diet to either promote or reduce inflammation by looking for the presence of foods known to create inflammation, like processed meats, refined grains and sugary drinks.

This research demonstrated that the dietary pattern followed while growing up strongly influences the timeline of puberty.  Eating nutrient-rich foods was linked to a later start of menstruation compared to an earlier start observed in those consuming more inflammatory foods.  (4)

• Participants with the highest AHEI healthy diet scores (indicating a healthier diet) were 8% less likely to start menstruation within the next month compared to those with the lowest AHEI scores.
• Participants with the highest EDIP inflammatory diet scores (indicating a more inflammatory diet) were 15% more likely to start menstruation within the next month compared to those with the lowest EDIP scores.
• Both of these associations remained even after adjustment for BMI and height, two factors that were previously considered to be strong predictors of the onset of puberty.

 

 

Why is this important?  Because early puberty is linked to higher vulnerability to health issues in adulthood including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and breast cancer.  Increasing the healthfulness of dietary patterns in children and adolescents not only supports better health at a young age but is also associated with lower risks of disease over the long-term.  (3,4)

It is not always easy to get children to eat more healthfully, especially if the adults of the family are not leading the way.  Here are a few helpful tips for encouraging children to eat more nutritiously from HealthlinkBC and the Canadian Pediatric Society.  (5.6)

• Eat together as a family as often as possible. Make these meals pleasant and positive.  Steer away from battles about food.  Don’t allow TV or other distractions during the meal.
• Avoid pressuring children to eat certain foods.
• Provide a variety of nutritious foods at the table and both the adults and the children should eat from these selections. Let your child decide what and how much he or she will eat from the choices offered.
• Keep poor food choices out of your house. Foods like candy, soft drinks and processed foods should not be available.  If the adults of the family have some desire to eat unhealthy foods, they should not bring them to the family table but eat them at another time, preferably when the children are not around.
• Offer a variety of healthy snacks for children to eat whenever they are hungry. Some suggestions are whole fruit, dried fruit, baby carrots with hummus, fruit smoothies made with plant-based  milk, air-popped or low-fat popcorn and whole grain bread, pita or crackers with peanut butter.
• Don’t worry if your child seems to eat very little. Kids vary in their need for calories.  If your child’s weight and height is on track with the Growth Chart, even if they are at the lower end of the chart, and he or she is eating a varied diet of nutritious foods, they are likely eating enough.
• As your children grow older, teach them about why foods are healthy or unhealthy. Talk about nutrients that build our health and those that damage our bodies. For older kids, explain what nutrition labels are all about and show them how they can make their own choices in the food that they eat.

 

SOURCES:

1  Lee, H.S. Why should we be concerned about early menarche? Clin Exp Pediatr. 2021 Jan;64(1):26-27. Doi: 10.3345/cep.2020.00521. Epub 2020 Jul 13. PMID: 32683812; PMCID: PMC7806408.

2  Papadimitriou, A. The evolution of the age at menarche from prehistorical to modern times. J Pediatr Adolesc Gynecol. 2016;29:527–30. Doi: 10.1016/j.jpag.2015.12.002.

3  https://gutsweb.org/about-guts/

4  Davis, C.P., Fest, S., Cushing-Haugen, K., Kensler, T.W., Chavarro, J.E., Harris, H.R.  Dietary patterns and age at menarche in a prospective study of girls in the USA. Human Reproduction: June 2025; 40(6); Pages 1087–1093.  https://doi.org/10.1093/humrep/deaf072

5  https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/healthwise/healthy-eating-children

6  https://caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/healthy-living/healthy_eating_for_children