Female Fertility and the Body Fat Connection

by Frisch, Rose E.; Barbieri, Robert L.

• ISBN13: 9780226265452
• ISBN10: 0226265455
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Are girls entering puberty earlier than they used to? This question, which has been debated recently by doctors and scientists in the pages of Timemagazine and the New York Times, proves that there is still a great deal to learn about women's reproductive health. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connectionis the record of one scientist's groundbreaking and decades-long work on the connections among fertility, body fat, and reproductive health in women. Rose E. Frisch explains here how, in women, a certain amount of body fat is crucial to the reproductive system and sexual maturation. Women who are too lean are infertile and cannot conceive children; young girls who are too thin have a delayed onset of their first period. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connectionilluminates how and why a "critical fitness" level underlies a woman's reproductive health. In the process Frisch gives readers a comprehensive view of the research done to date on the relationship between body composition and fertility and also describes her own journey as a woman scientist working to advance her critical-fitness hypothesis both to the general public and the scientific community. Frisch answers the questions every woman has about the desirable weight for health and fertility and even includes tables to help women find their own best weight. She also demonstrates how important diet and exercise are for the long-term reproductive health of women, and shows what factors influence the onset of puberty in girls. Each milestone of the reproductive life span is affected by food intake and energy output, the factors affecting the storage of fat. Female Fertility and the Body-Fat Connectionis a cornerstone to understanding the health of girls and women.

Author Biography

Rose E. Frisch is an associate professor of population sciences emerita at the Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the research faculty of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the John Simon Memorial Guggenheim Foundation. She is the editor of Adipose Tissue and Reproduction and has written widely on female fertility and on the natural fertility of populations.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Robert L. Barbieri
Acknowledgments	xi
Female Body Fat	1	(13)
Celebrating the Difference
Too Little and Too Much Body Fat	14	(8)
Female Adolescence	22	(16)
Puberty and Growing Up
Eggs, Sperm, ``Female Testes,'' and Other Fancies and Facts about the Reproductive System	38	(21)
Historical Guesses	59	(6)
What Hastened or Slowed Menarche?
Predicting Menarche	65	(18)
Critical Fatness
Pubertal Body Fat---Sex Fat?	83	(10)
A Neat Mechanism for Reproductive Success
Physical Activity and Too Little Fat	93	(20)
Ballet Dancers, Swimmers, Runners, and Other Athletes
Exercise and Lower Risk of Breast Cancer	113	(24)
The Alumnae Health Study
Leptin	137	(10)
A New Hormone Made by Body Fat
Population, Food Intake, and Fertility	147	(23)
Old and New Perspectives
Fatness, Fertility, and the Body Mass Index	170	(5)
Finding Your ``Desirable Weight''
Biographical Note	175	(2)
Glossary	177	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	181	(6)
Index	187