I admit they may, like most advocacy groups, be willing to interpret the evidence in a specific light to advance their cause.

They are, and have, as they half-admit in some of their press releases. I used to have quite a higher opinion of PCRM than I do now - unlike you, I don’t believe that nobility of purpose justifies using “Trust me, I’m a doctor” to mislead others. If you have actual evidence that consumption of animal protein leads to ‘early’ menarche, put up or shut up. The study PCRM cites says no such thing.

“Contradictory” isn’t the point, Hugo. What you’re doing is vile. If a study suggested that meat consumption in adolescence was correlated with homosexuality in adulthood, would you “gently suggest” to your students that they consider a vegan diet for their kids in order to make sure they don’t turn out to be queers?

Somehow I suspect I know the answer.

I AM ONE! Hi!

The evidence that I read suggests vegetarianism in girls can delay the onset of menarche without doing any noticeable harm

Menarche doesn’t do any noticeable harm, so why should it be delayed? It won’t protect girls from anything to start later than their peers, becuse adults aren’t going to ask if they’ve got their period yet before they treat them as sexual beings. Unless you’re advocating that girls should wear colour-coded hats, so men know if they’re fair game to hit on?

I do trust the science as reported by PCRM; they are a “physicians committee”, and I defer to their analysis. I admit they may, like most advocacy groups, be willing to interpret the evidence in a specific light to advance their cause.

I admit, too, that I’m committed to both a vegan agenda and safety and justice for young people. I think the anxiety we have is fundamentally misplaced — but if, if, if, parents want to persist in “doing something” about their anxiety, adopting a vegan diet might be one strategy for delaying menarche.

When and if we are blessed with a daughter, we will raise her the same way we raise a son — on a vegan diet where possible. We will accept puberty when it arrives, whenever it arrives, and love and affirm our children just as they are. I wish all parents felt the same. But it’s not contradictory, really it’s not, to argue that some of the anxiety paerents feel is misplaced while simultaneously suggesting that one of many ways to deal with what is admittedly a misplaced worry is to adopt a vegan diet. The evidence that I read suggests vegetarianism in girls can delay the onset of menarche without doing any noticeable harm; evidence also suggests that high consumption of meat is unhealthy for most humans (regardless of sex).

your commenting here has gotten increasingly critical

That’s because your posting has gotten increasingly dishonest. I’m sorry, but there’s no way for me to gently sugar-coat the fact that the only issue that is truly real to you is animal rights. You’ve repeatedly shown that your other claimed principles - feminism, pacifism - are quickly set aside in the interests of promoting animal rights. The reason I’m so snotty about that is that your ego apparently refuses to permit you to concede that’s what you’re doing. And yes, I’m beginning to wonder why I’m bothering to listen to somebody whose attitude about the exploitation of women, for example, is “I can deplore the exploitation of women’s bodies except when PETA does it, but I have feminist cred so you can’t call me on it”?

As for the actual subject of the post, I don’t understand why what I said was confusing, so I’ll try to lay it out succinctly.

1) Unlike you, I am a parent. Unlike you, I am also a parent of a teenage daughter and a daughter who is about to be a teenager. So when you talk about what parents clearly want or ought to think, that chaps my hide - particularly in an election season where every vile, reactionary assjack is insisting that we support their candidate/ballot issue/opinion because OMFG TEH CHILDREN!!!11!!!

2) You admit right up in your post that you deliberately exploit your students’ anxiety about girls’ sexual development to push your vegan agenda. That is evil. Period. “But we talk about other stuff!” does not change the fact that you are encouraging and approving that anxiety because it furthers another of your political goals.

3) I’m going to cut you some slack on this one and assume it’s just liberal-arts cluelessness plus wishful thinking, but you are citing ’scientific evidence’ that just isn’t there. The study cited by PCRM doesn’t say what you want it to say. (It’s also rather questionable whether it has evidentiary value - again, read the abstract.) There is no credible scientific consensus that consuming animal protein in any form leads to “unnaturally” premature sexual development in teenage girls.

4) And again, what you’re doing actually hurts your cause. Think of all those anti-drug programs that tell kids one puff of weed will MEAN THEIR DOOM, or that having sex ever will cause their genitals to turn purple and fall off. Then the kids find out the grown-ups are lying, and they don’t listen to things that might be important, like “Heroin will kill you” or “Condoms prevent STDs.”

So when you fudge on what ’science’ says, or approve of T&A or violence, what makes you think people will give any credibility to your views on Proposition 2, or the health of a vegan diet for children?

Menarche. Isn’t. Physical. Maturity.

Pretending along with you that it is, though, is there some particular reason you think girls ought to be made to associate lustful feelings with menstruation, of all things? Because personally, and I know I’m just a girl, I appreciated having them develop just a bit out of sync. (Out of sync because I started thinking about sex a few months before menarche, as is perfectly normal, but never mind that.)

Secondly, do you have ANY evidence that girls who start menstruating at 14 or 15 have sexual feelings that are more “congruent” with their physical development than girls who start earlier? Why do you think it doesn’t take the older girls a couple months or years to settle into their bodies, just like the rest of us?

http://feministing.com/archives/008359.html

No, of course it wasn’t. However a few questions come to mind:

1) How many females had access to these gynecological services 100 years ago? I’m guessing not a tremendous number.

2) How could they have verified the age of menarche through anything other than personal testimony? Seems to me that given the fear and shame of menstruation and early sexual activity amongst females would have led to a significant number of girls lying about when they began to menstruate.

Yep, which is why I was getting ready to post this:

http://amananta.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/i-spit-on-your-superior-upper-body-strength/

I hate to break it to you, sport, but veganism is fundamentally at odds with nature. Rip out your intestines and your dentition sometime and hand ‘em over to a biologist, and say “what kind of diet does the critter these came out of require”? S/he’ll tell you, “omnivore”.

Lots of things are fundamentally at odds with nature. Eyeglasses. Cancer drugs. Living in artificial houses instead of caves. Cooking. “Fundamentally at odds with nature” is shorthand for “not living like a fool”.

I think the other commenters are on point here. You’ve got some squick issue about teenage girls or something. Worrying about when strangers’ children hit menarche is freaky, bro. For the record, I have a five year old girl, and like Faith and others, I could care less when she hits puberty; I just want her to be healthy, happy, well-cared for, and given space for her physical, sexual, and emotional development at her own pace. I feed her meat when she wants meat and vegetables when she wants vegetables.

If you’re concerned about early sexualization of girls, then start writing Wal-Mart and pressuring them to get their Junior Whore toy lines off the shelves.