Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist.

Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by Detrus on Monday March 07, 2011 @10:05PM (#2299650)

So, did they do brain-scans of "teens" and "adults" in societies where the distinction doesn't exist? Seems like the critical piece missing from the argument.

It's also possible that there was a smaller difference in the brain a few hundred years ago from factors like food availability. The current over-abundance of food is changing the the timing of puberty for example.

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Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @11:03AM (#2301332)

>The current over-abundance of food is changing the the timing of puberty for example.

Is it food availability, do you have a citation - I hypothesised that this was due to the wash of oestrogen-like chemicals and hormone disruptors in domestic use in the more developed nations.

Edit: an example citation - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/...; other articles note the increase in the use of soya in countless processed foods and the high levels of oestrogenic chemicals it has.

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Re:Are "teens" born or made? An interesting twist. by Detrus on Tuesday March 08, 2011 @02:20PM (#2302198)

http://www.cfah.org/hbns/archives/viewSupportDoc.cfm?support...

http://edrv.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/5/668

Could be chemicals, could be nutrition or genetics, doesn't look like they pinned it down. But in the context of this discussion, culture shouldn't be the only culprit.

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