According to Kathleen Berger's "The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescence" (6th ed.) causes of individual differences in menarche include genes and ethnicity, body fat and family stress. Of those, the most likely cause of the earlier age at menarche is body fat (increased nutrition). "For both sexes, chronic malnutrition reduces body fat and therefore delays puberty by several years. This is probably the primary reason puberty occurred as late as age 17 in Europe from about the sixteenth to the eighteenth century--with marked cohort and regional variations." (p. 435)
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