[Andy from Beaverton]

Could it be the hormones they put in the food? Got milk???

[krb]

I distinctly remember being in the 5th grade talking with my friend Sean after they showed us the sex-ed charts showing how the penis deposits sperm into the vagina and somehow the uterus picks it up and it meets the egg and the baby is started.

We were so clueless that we concluded that you have to pee inside the woman to make a baby (because they didn't cover everything in class).

I simply can not imagine what it's like to be a 10 or 11 year old these days.

[capitan_refugio]

Although there may very well be a side-effect to the consumption of cow's milk throughout childhood, it is more likely that "precocious puberty" is the result of better nutrition for children than in centuries past.

Poorly fed and nourished children, even today, have a delayed puberty. However, precocious puberty was noted in medical texts in the 1800's. I think the reasoning about this today is, if nature allows menarche to occur as early as 8 years of age, but it was not often seen that early, it was because those who might have started early did not for environmental reasons (insufficient nutrition, delayed growth spurts, etc.). In other words, the genetics were there but the environment of the application of the genes was not. These days, with better pre-natal care, better post-natal care, better early child care, more children are being given the opportunity to develop early.