Association of screen exposure/sedentary behavior and precocious puberty/early puberty

Xinyu Wu; Lingmei Wang; Peng Xue; Jingyi Tang; Haodong Wang; Huijun Kong; Cuilan Lin; Bo Chang; Shijian Liu

doi:10.3389/fped.2024.1447372

Association of screen exposure/sedentary behavior and precocious puberty/early puberty

Front Pediatr. 2024 Sep 23:12:1447372. doi: 10.3389/fped.2024.1447372. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Xinyu Wu^{1

2}, Lingmei Wang¹, Peng Xue^{3

4}, Jingyi Tang^{3

4}, Haodong Wang¹, Huijun Kong⁵, Cuilan Lin⁶, Bo Chang¹, Shijian Liu^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Endocrinology, Dalian Women and Children's Medical Group, Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
² Department of Pediatrics, The People's Hospital of Suzhou New District, Suzhou, China.
³ Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Pediatric Translational Medicine Institute, Shanghai Children's Medical Center, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, Qufu People's Hospital, Qufu, China.
⁶ Department of Children Health Care, Boai Hospital of Zhongshan, Southern Medical University, Zhongshan, Guangdong, China.

Abstract

Background: In recent years, with the development of society, children's daily exposure to screen time has gradually increased. Screen exposure and sedentary behavior have brought a host of harms to children's lives. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of screen exposure and sedentary behavior on precocious puberty and early development.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study in the school-based population. A total of 3,560 children were recruited from Qufu City, Shandong province using multistage stratified cluster random sampling. All study subjects had a physical examination by professional pediatricians in October 2019, and were investigated with health questionnaires. Precocious puberty is defined as development of secondary sexual signs in boys before 9 years or in girls before 8 years. Screen time was calculated as the average of screen time on weekdays and weekend days, and sedentary time was calculated as the average of sedentary time on weekdays and weekend days. After adjusting for potential confounders, logistic regression was used to examine the association between screen exposure and sedentary behavior and early puberty and precocious puberty.

Results: Sedentary time was a risk factor for precocious puberty and early development (OR = 1.428, 95% CI = 1.087-1.876) in girls without adjustment. No significant association was found between screen exposure and early puberty and early development both in girls and boys.

Conclusions: Excessive sedentary behavior was associated with an increased risk of early puberty, especially in girls, while there was no significant association between screen exposure and early puberty and early development. In addition, further longitudinal investigations are needed to determine the causal relationship between screen exposure, sedentary behavior and precocious puberty.

Keywords: early puberty; obesity; precocious puberty; screen exposure; sedentary behavior.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study received financial support from various sources, including the National Science Foundation of China (82173534, 81872637), Special Program for Women and Children health (2020YJZX0212), Cultivation Project of Clinical Research from SCMC (LY-SCMC2020-06), Project of “Unveiling the Top” for Sanya Women and Children Hospital (SYFY-JBGS-202201), Major Science and Technology Projects of Fujian Province (2021YZ034011).