Early puberty in 11-year-old girls: Millennium Cohort Study findings

Objective: Early puberty in girls is linked to some adverse outcomes in adolescence and mid-life. We address two research questions: (1) Are socioeconomic circumstances and ethnicity associated with early onset puberty? (2) Are adiposity and/or psychosocial stress associated with observed associations?

Design: Longitudinal data on 5839 girls from the UK Millennium Cohort Study were used to estimate associations between ethnicity, family income, adiposity and psychosocial stress with a marker of puberty.

Main outcome measure: Reported menstruation at age 11 years.

Results: All quoted ORs are statistically significant. Girls in the poorest income quintile were twice as likely (OR=2.1), and the second poorest quintile nearly twice as likely (OR=1.9) to have begun menstruation compared with girls in the richest income quintile. Estimates were roughly halved on adjustment for Body Mass Index and markers of psychosocial stress (poorest, OR=1.5; second poorest, OR=1.5). Indian girls were over 3 times as likely compared with whites to have started menstruation (OR=3.5) and statistical adjustments did not attenuate estimates. The raised odds of menstruation for Pakistani (OR=1.9), Bangladeshi (OR=3.3) and black African (OR=3.0) girls were attenuated to varying extents, from about a third to a half, on adjustment for income and adiposity.

Conclusions: In contemporary UK, excess adiposity and psychosocial stress were associated with social inequalities in early puberty, while material disadvantage and adiposity were linked to ethnic inequalities in early puberty among girls.