Girl, you'll be a woman ...sooner than expected

Puberty is arriving ever younger in American females

8 is no longer considered abnormal

AT 8 or 9 years old, the typical American schoolgirl is perfecting her cursive handwriting style. She's picking out nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in sentences, memorizing multiplication tables and learning to read a thermometer.She's a little girl with a lot to learn.

And yet, in increasing numbers, when girls this age run across the playground in T-shirts, there is undeniable evidence that their bodies are blossoming. The first visible sign of puberty, breast budding, is arriving ever earlier in American girls.

Some parents and activists suspect environmental chemicals.

Most pediatricians and endocrinologists say that, though they have suspicions about the environment, the only scientific evidence points to the obesity epidemic. What's clear, however, is that the elements of female maturity increasingly are spacing themselves out over months, even years -- and no one quite knows why.

While early menstruation is a known risk factor for breast cancer, no one knows what earlier breast development means for the future of girls' health...

This from the LA Times. Photo by Lisa Adams.

Either way you spin it, Kentucky is tops in restricting school junk food

Kentucky faired well in a recent study about junk food sales in the nation's schools. Here's Education Week's glass half-full spin on the story:

Junk Food Survey Gives High Marks to Standout States

Oregon and Washington can brag about being most improved when it comes to states with the healthiest school nutrition policies, based on results in a Washington-based consumer-advocacy group’s latest annual report card .

For the second year, the Center for Science in the Public Interest graded states on whether they restrict the sale and consumption of sugary sodas and items such as candy and chips purchased from vending machines, school stores, or along with the regular school lunch.

Oregon moved from an F in the group’s 2006 report to an A-minus this year, joining only Kentucky with that grade, the highest achieved this year. Washington state moved from an F to a B-minus...

And with their glasses half-empty, this press release from the Center on Science in the Public Interest who produced the study:

Two-thirds of States Get Poor Grades

on School Food Report Card

Lack of Progress Indicates Need

for Strong Federal Action, Says CSPI

WASHINGTON— Kentucky and Oregon top the nation in healthy school foods policies, but two-thirds of states have no or weak nutrition standards to limit junk-food and soda sales out of vending machines, school stores, and other venues outside of school meals, according to a school foods report card from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

“Over the last ten years, states have been strengthening their school nutrition policies,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at CSPI. “But overall, the changes, while positive, are fragmented, incremental, and not happening quickly enough to reach all children in a timely way.”

No states received an A grade, though two states (Kentucky and Oregon) received an A-; six states received a B+ (Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Washington and New Mexico); nine states earned a B or B-; six states and the District of Columbia received Cs; seven states got Ds; and 20 states got Fs...

The report:

School Foods Report Card 2007

Fueled by concerns about childhood obesity and children’s poor diets, a number of states have strengthened their school nutrition policies. Such policies are important for children’s health and supporting parents’ efforts to feed their children healthfully...

[...Over the last 20 years, obesity rates have tripled in children and adolescents, and only 2 percent of children eat a healthy diet, according to key nutrition recommendations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Despite that, about a third of elementary schools, 71 percent of middle schools, and 89 percent of high schools sell items such as sugary drinks, snack cakes, candy, and chips out of vending machines, school stores, or a la carte lines in the cafeteria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2006 School Health Policies and Programs Study.]

To determine the progress states have made in improving the nutritional quality of school foods, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) evaluated the school nutrition policies of all 50 states and the District of Columbia regarding foods and beverages sold outside of the school meal programs through vending machines, a la carte (i.e., foods sold individually in the cafeteria), school stores, and fundraisers.

Each state policy was graded based on five key considerations: 1) beverage nutrition standards; 2) food nutrition standards; 3) grade level(s) to +which policies apply; 4) time during the school day to which policies apply; and 5) location(s) on campus to which policies apply. These evaluation criteria are the same as those used in our June 2006 School Foods Report Card...

CSPI blames "a patchwork" of state policies where "two-thirds of states have weak or no policies."

Tater Poisioning !

An interactive map of obesity in the US from CNN.

P.E. Classes Turn to Video Game That Works Legs

They rushed, past the Ping-Pong table, the balance beams, the wrestling mats... toward two TV sets looming over square plastic mats on the floor. In less than a minute a dozen seventh graders were dancing in furiously kinetic union to the thumps of a techno song called “Speed Over Beethoven.”

Bill Hines, a physical education teacher at the school for 27 years, shook his head a little, smiled and said, “I’ll tell you one thing: they don’t run in here like that for basketball.”

It is a scene being repeated across the country as schools deploy the blood-pumping video game Dance Dance Revolution as the latest weapon in the nation’s battle against the epidemic of childhood obesity.

While traditional video games are often criticized for contributing to the expanding waistlines of the nation’s children, at least several hundred schools in at least 10 states are now using Dance Dance Revolution, or D.D.R., as a regular part of their physical education curriculum.

This from the New York Times. Photo by Michael Temchine for The New York Times.