What are the developmental characteristics of adolescent girls?

Everyone goes through puberty, which is an important stage in life during which the body undergoes major changes. At the same time, you will have confused thoughts psychologically, and gradually want to understand the changes in your body. Girls undergo significant developmental changes during puberty, which also has a great impact on their future growth and development. So, what are the developmental characteristics of adolescent girls?

1. Endocrine changes

The morphological and functional changes during puberty are mainly affected by the neuroendocrine system.

Before puberty, the endocrine system changes very little. There are no obvious differences between boys and girls except for their genitals. But huge changes occur during puberty. How do these changes occur?

At the onset of puberty, the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary gland develop rapidly and their functions increase. Through a series of channels, it controls and regulates the relevant endocrine glands to secrete hormones with different functions. Under the synergistic action of multiple hormones, it promotes development. For example, gonadal hormones promote sexual maturation. The thyroid gland can promote the differentiation and maturation of tissues, has a great impact on the nervous system and gonads, and is an important factor in promoting growth, development, and maturation.

2. Changes in human morphological development

During adolescence, the whole body grows rapidly, which is particularly obvious in terms of human morphology. Due to rapid bone and muscle development, height and weight increase rapidly. During puberty, boys grow an average of 7-9 cm in height, while girls grow 5-7 cm. Judging from the average values ​​of developmental indicators such as height, weight, and shoulder width of adolescents, they gradually increase with age. Moreover, there is a secondary crossover phenomenon between men and women for each indicator. The first crossover occurs at the age of 9-10, which means that before the age of 9-10, males develop faster than females. After the cross, all developmental indicators of females surpass those of males. At the age of 14-16, there is a second crossover between boys and girls, and after the crossover, the development level of boys exceeds that of girls in all aspects. The gap between men and women will become wider and wider.

3. Functional Development

During adolescence, while morphology develops, various physiological functions also undergo significant changes. There are also significant differences in functional development between men and women. Taking lung capacity as an example, it increases with age. There is no crossover between male and female functional curves. In terms of other physiological and biochemical indicators, heart rate and respiratory rate decrease with age. Adolescent girls have slightly higher heart rates than boys.

The number of red blood cells and hemoglobin increased significantly in men, but not in women. Adolescent girls should pay attention to dietary nutrition to prevent anemia.

In terms of motor function, represented by muscle strength, both boys and girls have a clear growth spurt during puberty. In all age groups, the average value of boys is greater than that of girls of the same age. The older you get, the bigger the difference.

The above is an introduction to the developmental characteristics of adolescent girls. It can be seen that there are great changes in both appearance and endocrine system, so we must be mentally prepared during this period. It is best to explain some knowledge about puberty to the children in advance and give them a good guidance, which will be beneficial to their growth.