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I made a delicious lentil and vegetable stew the other day. I had to hurry and leave the house, I was bringing some of it to my sister, I had to pour it in a tupperware while still hot, and the rest into a tupperware for myself for when I came home. But by the time I reached her house I decided neither she or I should eat any. The heat of the stew had made the plastic containers soften up and be more flexible. I knew that the plastic was in the food. Even though I had spent hours on it, I threw it all out. My sis agreed with me. We both were sad because the food itself would have been really good – but it wasn’t worth the plastic toxins. I will be investing in a case of mason jars.

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Anita Reply:
October 4th, 2011 at 3:58 pm

I’m with you. I save glass jars from spaghetti sauce and jelly for just this purpose!

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Women in Jamaica and the Carribean are using black market agricultural hormones given to livestock, to get the curvy/meaty figure that is appreciated there. There is no doubt that being exposed to agricultural hormones in animal products is part of what is causing early puberty in our country. The rest of it is other synthetics (pesticides, fertilizers, artificial scents and colors, cleaners, plastics, solvents, preservatives, fire retardants, things like ether, benzene, and formaldehyde in the walls, carpets, and materials we use in our daily lives and work in our homes and workplaces, etc.)

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Read the book “The Estrogen Effect” – it will scare the cr@p out of you, and make you very angry. Not only are we being affected, there are literally some species that are going extinct because their sex development has been altered so badly by artificial estrogens in the environment. I am a victim of precocious puberty. One thing no one is mentioning is that it stunts your growth and makes you fat. So we are going to have a generation of permanently short, fat (or prone to fat) girls/women, who will be more prone to female problems and female cancers all their life, than ever would have happened in nature. Many, many girls of the generation coming up now are not even going to hit 5 feet. The age you have menarche is basically the age you stop growing. You might get one or two more inches, but that’s it. I started developing at age 8 and had my first period one week after I turned 11. My development preceded each step of the sex ed classes at school and my mom was also stupidly naive, but when she figured it out it was apparently knowledge for public discourse, she discussed with my teachers, which totally humiliated and angered me. I told no one when I got my period. I developed an eating disorder because my family started calling me fat because I was developing and no longer looked like a kid. So, I started counting calories and fat grams of everything I ate, at 8 when I started developing. That probably stunted my growth too. I probably would have gotten period even earlier had I had sufficient calories (starvation suppresses development and hormonal function). I began to ease up on dieting once everyone else had developed and I no longer felt like a freak, but there were times I dieted after menarche and even tho I didn’t look too “thin” due to natural bone structure, my period would stop and I knew I had dieted too far. I had gotten pretty good at dieting and could keep it under 1000 calories a day when I wanted to. I was frusterated to not be able to find clothes that fit right – the legs on jeans were too long, the waist was too high, I had waist, hips, derriere that nothing fit (gap in back of jeans waist, etc). It gave me a bad body image and frusteration that nothing I could buy, was bought for me, or even someone sewed at home, fit me (because commercial patterns used a similar cut). So, I must be fat then, since no clothes fit right, so I would count calories and starve. What I was “supposed” to be, according to everyone else’s expectations, criticisms, or purposefully ignoring, I wasn’t. I felt ugly, fat, zitty, hairy, and like I had short legs and a big butt and thighs (in fact, I had a lovely figure and later in my teens took bellydance classes). I had stopped growing at menarche at 11. By middle school people were starting to outdistance me in height. By 14 they were putting me on top of the pyramid in gym class and I had stopped running cross country and track because I didn’t have the length of stride to be competitive anymore. I have a 28″ inseam and have to hem almost every pair of pants I have (or wear 5″ heels). Levi’s “short” jeans have a 32″ish inseam for women – so if you are shorter than “short” where does that leave you? (but men can buy 30″ inseam jeans, but women’s start at 32″? Are we all supposed to wear hooker heels if we happen to be short?). I don’t know what the tiny Asian girls do, but since they are already tiny, in the generations coming up they are going to be 4’6″ instead of 5″ due to the artificial estrogen effect. I estimate I probably lost at least 2 inches in height that I should have had by genetic inheritance, due to early development and then eating disorder that was the result of that. Let me tell you that young puberty is no fun and caused me a lot of grief socially and in my family. Family pretending it wasn’t happening, peers noticed majorly. It also was hard on me to have such a long span between when I had the “equipment” to when it was socially acceptable to use it (I waited on purpose until I was 16 to avoid scandal or legal issues – I made sure boyfriend was also under 18 – whereas other girls I knew had menarche older and end of virginity younger than I – like they had menarche at 14 and sex at 15 – a more natural progression, in my opinion). There was weird tension in the house due to someone noticing that his shaving cream had been used, that a bra strap was showing, etc. Women said nothing and men leched. I felt uncomfortable around my male relatives. I had crushes on my male cousins and stepbrothers, or felt shy, and felt weird/shy around adult men in family or family friends. Friend’s uncle’s hit on me (at 11). I had to change house I lived at due to an adult male relative’s pedophilia. Weird guy looked in the bedroom window while we were latchkey kids (I was 10). Other kids tried to catch a glimpse of me undressing. Horribly embarrasing to shower not alone, at 8 and 9 and developing. Pedophilia at that point and being taunted by younger sibling. My mom fed us on plastic plates and cups, including microwaving food in plastic dishes with saran wrap on top, or frozen dinners in plastic trays or those plastic-coated cardboard trays; juice, pop and milk that sat in plastic bottles, yogurt and cottage cheese in plastic, canned vegetables, soup and fruit, plenty of mainstream meat and dairy,stuff with lots of artifical colors and flavors, all that crap, not to mention I was a bottle baby and was a major pacifier baby – this was before the pthalates etc were removed from plastics that babies are exposed to. House had new synthetic carpet, counters, vinyl etc and car was new. There were no natural foods, natural cleaners, or anything natural used or eaten in the house. Sunscreens and lotions were slathered on us. We sat in bubble bath. All synthetic products, ticking hormonal time bombs. So I definitely got more endocrine disruptors than I should have. I’ve always been sensitive to synthetic anything – cleaner aisle in grocery store makes it so I can’t breathe, new car smell, drycleaning smell, varnishes, permanent markers, toner, whiteout, chemical cleaners, etc all make me ill. My body obviously has a low tolerance to synthetics either by my innate makeup, which would explain my adverse hormonal reaction at a young age (as well as immune dysfunction of severe allergies, asthma, and later a serious autoimmune condition), or due to overexposure at the young age causing permanent sensitivity. Menarche should be a celebration, not a secret, and when your girls are coming of age at 10 everyone wants it to be a secret and ignore the fact that there is a sexually mature 10 year old in the house who has period, wears bra, uses deodorant, shaves legs and underarms, has to bikini wax or shave to go swimming (and get stared at by men when she does), is attracted to boys and men (and they to her), has a sex drive, and is not going to act like a kid emotionally or socially, etc.(including teenager attitude at a young age). It’s biologically years early, but ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. When the boys have years to go and the girls are 5 years ahead of them, it’s a major dichotomy. And it is really bad for pedophiles to be attracted to 8, 9, 10 year old girls. There were 5 girls that we even KNEW of who had babies in GRADESCHOOL and then came back to school. One kept hers, the rest were adopted out. Again, that is only even the ones we knew of. This was a suburban, award winning school district. I was witness to one male teacher hitting on a girl in 5th or 6th grade because he said he liked how her clothes looked on her. Major issue, he got fired and punished by school district, and the girl and her girl friends were very upset, she almost didn’t tell. Parents, don’t expose your kids to crap. Have wood or ceramic tile floors, granite or wood counters,low tox paints and finishes, etc. in your household furnishings. Toys, containers and dishes of natural materials and not plastic. Wrap up leftovers in tinfoil. Use natural cleaners, buy or grow natural foods. If you don’t want to use your tatas like nature intended, get la leche league to donate real breast milk and glass baby bottles instead of formula in plastic bottles. Don’t use body products made of synthetic anything, not even natural stuff that comes stored in a plastic bottle.

The boys are also being affected, measurements show that newborn baby boy genitals are drifting in shape closer and closer to female every decade, like continents slowly moving. Sperm counts are so low now in the developed world that many men in 30′s have trouble fathering children. Boys are fat and have “moobs” (male breasts), girls are fat and have boobs earlier than they should. Women are fat and get female cancers and conditions. Men are fat and get infertility, need Viagra, get prostate issues (which is also due to endocrine disruption). Environmental estrogens are a large part of the obesity epidemic in our country. What are we going to have to do, surgically remove one of each girl’s ovaries to counteract this overload of estrogen caused by what we have put into the environment? Just like some women who have breast cancer running in their families, are choosing to have mastectomies preemptively? And the boys are just screwed.
This is not kids’ fault, it is our fault. They are only exposed to what we expose them to. If I have kids, will make effort to keep exposure to this crap to a minimum. I’ll be 31 in a week and it will be 20 years of menstruating at that point. When we have 20, 25 years between when a girl is physically mature and when she can responsibly have kids due to what it takes educationally, economically, etc to be prepared to be a parent (middle class now needs two earners and years of paid work behind and ahead of the mom to make their household financially solvent) there is something wrong with our society not only physically and environmentally due to early sex development but socially and economically due to delayed natural progress of partnering and motherhood. That span of years should be less than 10 (get period in early teens, and OK to get married once out of highschool). Everything is out of whack in our society as far as what we manufacture, what we eat, how we live, how we make our $ by making or selling this crap, then spend our $ buying this crap, etc. Women are living lives that do not fit us gracefully and naturally. All our natural traits are being altered or subjected to be out of line with our natural inheritance. Girls getting periods at 9,10. 1 in 6 women getting breast cancer. Nobody breastfeeding. Women getting female cancers and conditions in record numbers. Women feeding their kids crap in plastic and cans and leftovers from tupperware or frozen dinners because they are too busy working for $ pay, to cook. Thus their kids then get estrogen overload from what they are eating (and exposed to in other ways too in the house and at school). Their 11 year old daughter gets pregnant and their son is teased because he is overweight and has “moobs.” This is if she and her husband could have kids at all without fertility treatments – and if fertility treatments fail, they can adopt the baby from another 12 year old that got pregnant. The whole system is f___’d up. I’m moving to the country and getting this crap out of my system before I have kids and expose them to this.
I know this is long but it is totally pertinent to this very important topic.

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Let’s find out what “Better Living Through Chemistry” has really brought us.

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It’s true that there are estrogen-mimicking chemicals in waterways, and maybe even in our drinking water—but the major contributors are industrial pollutants and hormones given to livestock. The contribution of estrogen from birth control (EE2) is minimal and unlikely to be causing harm to human health or aquatic life.

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TLC Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 3:21 am

@Kimberly Inez McGuire,
Yes! Watch out for livestock!!!!!

I had developed breasts by the time I was seven, a full carpet (to match the drapes) by age 8, my menarche by age 10, and depression/sucide attempts by age 12.

What did my family eat for dinner almost every night when I was a young girl?

!!!!!!!!CHICKEN!!!!!!!!

Now people are finally starting to get wise about buying wholesome organic non-growth hormone chicken, but it’s not enough to only offer a substantially more expensive alternative. It should just be the norm.

BAN GROWTH HORMONES IN US LIVESTOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-A mom who wants to give her daughter the chance she didn’t get.

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While I think that ridding our environment of toxins of all kinds is important for all of us, I think that we overlook a possible major component in precocious puberty. Babies were meant to be breastfed exclusively for 6 months, and the bulk of their diet should be breastmilk for the first year. And many are either not breastfed at all, or not breastfed exclusively. As a society, we need to make it easier for moms to get adequate help with breastfeeding when needed, and support for continued breastfeeding if a return to work is necessary, And we need to stop fillinf our air, water and soil with toxins that affect us all.

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Thanks for drawing attention to this issue. We need action from Congress to regulate the toxic chemicals flooding our environment and entering our bodies. The book Slow Death by Rubber Duck changed my life. I became an activist on behalf of my four-year-old granddaughter. I hope moms and grand-moms all across the nation will answer your call, Kristin. Early puberty is just one sign that something is drastically wrong. Part of the problem is the push back from the chemical industry, orchestrated by its lobbying branch, the American Chemical Council. The day I learned about Slow Death by Rubber Duck on NPR, a rep of the ACC had also been invited to the table, and he kept saying how safe BPA was. Hel-lo? We are not stupid. We know something is wrong. And, we want it fixed. BPA is a known endocrine disruptor. Please write more posts like this one. We all need to spread the word.

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I think you have overlooked a major factor contributing to this problem. There are millions of hormones being filtered into our water system from women using birth control pills. This is a much bigger problem than anything you have named so far. Why is this being overlooked?

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Anita Reply:
September 10th, 2010 at 5:21 pm

@Emily Ambuul, Thanks so much for this thoughtful question. We checked in with some of our environmental health partners on this and were referred to Kimberly Inez McGuire of the Reproductive Health Technology Project. She provided some information to answer your question– scroll up to see it.

Thanks again!

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I’ve written a couple of post about precocious puberty over at Babyminding (http://babyminding.com/?s=%22precocious+puberty%22), and it’s simply horrifying.

I think it’s great that you are providing a way for parents to take action! Hopefully, we can help reverse this disturbing trend and reduce our children’s exposure to harmful substances. Thank you for this post!

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This is so important. People don’t realize the importance of this. Things like this are changing us, changing our kids, changing the world and life as we know it. It is only getting worse. It is time to spread the word so that people take this more seriously. Stop worrying about the little issues and realize what the important issues are.

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1. Toxic Substances Control Act – Early Puberty — The Girl Revolution
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