Girls who are overweight before their first menstrual periods are almost eight times more likely to be overweight as women, the study finds. But there is no link between precocious puberty alone and being overweight later in life, The Associated Press reports.
"Given the epidemic of obesity in the population, it's important to know where best to intervene," says lead researcher Aviva Must, associate professor of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.
That intervention should start in childhood, she says.
For parents, adds Must, the study provides reassurance that early puberty is normal for some overweight girls, and there is no greater risk of being overweight as an adult for a slender girl who gets her first period early.
Findings by other researchers that early puberty in girls causes adult weight problems sparked her research, Must says. That supposed link threatened to rob attention from the real culprit: childhood obesity.
The study will stop doctors from trying to prevent obesity by suppressing early puberty with medications, says Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
