Can intense training affect my adolescent daughters development?
Yes. Adolescent girls who train heavily tend to be ultrathin with low body fat. “They burn more than they eat,” says Mona Shangold, M.D., director of the Center for Women’s Health and Sports Gynecology in Philadelphia, “and this calorie deficit delays puberty, which leads to deficient estrogen production.” Girls deficient in estrogen do not build as much bone as they should, leading to stress fractures and future osteoporosis, among other problems. Ultimately, Dr. Shangold stresses the importance of parental supervision: “Parents need to encourage their daughters not to become obsessed with exercise or thinness. And all children’s growth should be checked regularly by their pediatrician.” Q: Should kids under 18 go 26.2? A: Last March, close to 2,800 middle school and high school kids, ages 11 to 18, ran the Los Angeles Marathon as part of a program geared primarily for inner-city at-risk youth. In Students Run L.A., students train for months with volunteer coaches at 150 schools and m
