jc+and+ni+social+changes

 __ Stress and social factors __ Some of the least understood environmental influences on timing of puberty are social and psychological changes. In comparison with the effects of genetics, nutrition, and general health, social influences are small, things that happen that appear big to you but aren’t that big at all The most important part of a child's psychosocial environment is the family, and most of the social influence more extreme degrees of environmental stress, such as wartime refugee status with threat to physical survival, have been found to be associated with delay of maturation, an effect that may be compounded by dietary inadequacy. Interpretations of the data are politically controversial because of the ease with which this type of research can be used for political advocacy. Accusations of bias based on political agenda sometimes accompany scientific criticism. Another limitation of the social research is that nearly all of it has concerned girls, partly because female puberty requires greater physiologic resources and partly because it involves a unique event (menarche) that makes survey research into female puberty much simpler than male. More detail is provided in the menarche article.