An association of early puberty with disordered eating and anxiety in a population of undergraduate women and men

Abstract

Eating and anxiety disorders are more prevalent in females, increase during adolescence, and are associated with early pubertal development. This study examined whether timing of puberty onset is associated with disordered eating and anxiety in a large sample of post-pubertal male and female undergraduate students. Self-report questionnaires assessed timing of puberty, disordered eating, anxiety, alcohol use, personality, and sensation seeking. Females scored significantly higher on measures of disordered eating (binge eating, dietary restraint, eating concerns, and weight and shape concerns) and anxiety (state and trait anxiety) than did males. In addition, early maturing women and men scored significantly higher on measures of disordered eating and anxiety than on-time or late maturing women and men. Measures of alcohol use, sensation seeking, and personality characteristics differed in males and females but did not vary with pubertal timing. Findings suggest that early puberty is associated with disordered eating and anxiety, and this association may be due to an organizational effect of pubertal hormones. Despite important differences in body fat composition, both males and females experiencing early puberty had an increased incidence of disordered eating. The fact that early puberty was associated with increased eating and anxiety symptoms in both sexes suggests that puberty may influence these symptoms through both biological and psychosocial mechanisms.

Sexual Selection and Life History: Earlier Recalled Puberty Predicts Men’s Phenotypic Masculinization

“…This study expands on the work of and Sisk and colleagues (Schulz and Sisk 2006;Schulz et al 2009a, b;Zehr et al 2007) and Beltz and Berenbaum (2013) in exploring the organizing effects of hormones during puberty, and further emphasizes that pubertal timing may influence the masculinization of diverse adult traits. Pubertal timing explained a modest amount of the variance (approximately 10 %) in adult male BMI, facial dominance, and biceps circumference, as well as a smaller proportion of the variance in systemizing and mental rotation ability.…”

“…Pubertal timing explained a modest amount of the variance (approximately 10 %) in adult male BMI, facial dominance, and biceps circumference, as well as a smaller proportion of the variance in systemizing and mental rotation ability. Decreasing sensitivity to steroids (Schulz and Sisk 2006;Zehr et al 2007) is a plausible proximate mechanism for the negative relationships between the masculinity of the traits in the current study and pubertal timing. These results thus suggest that traits such as facial dominance, muscularity, and systemizing may experience decreasing sensitivity to organizational effects in adolescence.…”

“…Men's reproductive strategy should thus be contingent, with males in better condition (e.g., due to abundant nutrition during development or high quality genes) and able to develop intrasexually competitive phenotypes tending to adopt a more mating-oriented reproductive strategy (Gangestad and Simpson 2000) that may include earlier sexual maturation. Declining sensitivity to peripubertal androgens in some secondary sex traits (Schulz and Sisk 2006;Zehr et al 2007) may thus represent the proximate mechanism underlying these adaptive developmental contingencies.…”

“…Work with rodents has also revealed decreasing sensitivity with age to the organizational effects of peripubertal sex hormones on the brain and behavior (Schulz et al 2009a;Schulz and Sisk 2006). If these time-dependent effects of hormone exposure are present in humans, then pubertal timing may also partly explain individual differences in sexually differentiated human psychobehavioral traits (Zehr et al 2007).…”

<b>Females and post-pubescent adolescents: groups with high exposure to the development of body image dissatisfaction in São Bonifácio, Santa Catarina State, Brazil

“…In the case of boys, the literature has all sorts of gaps in this area. Investigating the maturation in adolescents becomes important, since early maturation may trigger other factors that contribute towards the development of body dissatisfaction in adulthood, such as anxiety symptoms and erratic eating (ZEHR et al, 2007).…”