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Little prospective work has charted the onset and predictors of subclinical or clinical eating problems. Eating problems were studied in 116 adolescent girls drawn from a normal population of students enrolled in private schools in a major metropolitan area who have been followed longitudinally over an 8-year period from young adolescence to young adulthood. Over a quarter of the sample scored above the level identifying a serious eating problem at each of the 3 times of assessment (mean ages = 14.3, 16.0, and 22.3 years). Examination of the adolescent pattern of eating problems over young and mid-adolescence indicated that pattern was associated with (a) earlier pubertal maturation and higher body fat, (b) concurrent psychological disturbances, (c) subsequent eating problems, and (d) other long-term adjustment outcomes such as depressive affect in young adulthood.Adolescents face numerous challenges during the transition from childhood to adulthood (Feldman & Elliott, 1990; Gun-nar& Collins, 1988;Lerner&Foch, 1987). These include physical, cognitive, and social changes altering every domain of the individual's life. Many of these transitions are sources of risk to physical and mental well-being for adolescents. Although adolescents in developed countries are healthy in that they experience a low incidence of disease, the World Health Organization (WHO; 1981) reported that adolescents are increasingly experiencing new health risks leading to mortality and morbidity. Even though morbidity has declined over the past 20 years in other age groups, it has increased by 11% for adolescents (U.S. Congress, 1991). Threats to adolescent health and well-being include injury from accidents, suicide, substance abuse, sexu-

Although the sequence of pubertal maturation remains consistent across most individuals, the timing and tempo of development fluctuate widely. While past research has largely focused on the sequelae of pubertal timing, a faster tempo of maturation might also present special challenges to children for acclimating to new biological and social milestones. Using latent growth curve modeling, the present study investigated how pubertal tempo and pubertal timing predicted depressive symptoms over a 4-year period in a sample of children recruited from New York City area public schools. Rate of intraindividual change in parent-reported Tanner stages was used as an index of pubertal tempo, and more advanced Tanner development at an earlier chronological age was used as an index of pubertal timing. For girls (N = 138, M = 8.86 years old at Time 1), pubertal timing emerged as the most salient factor, and the tempo at which girls progressed through puberty was not significant. In boys (N = 128, M = 9.61 years old at Time 1), both timing and tempo of development were significant; notably, however, the effects of pubertal tempo were stronger than those of timing. These findings highlight the need to consider multiple sources of individual variability in pubertal development and suggest different pubertal challenges for boys and girls.

In the past decade, much of the research on adolescent development has focused on the transitions that define and shape the experiences of adolescents. Several models are identified that have been useful in predicting and understanding behavioral and affective change at transitions, in particular, transitions occurring from middle childhood through adolescence. Some models are specific to particular transition points (such as pubertal development), whereas others may be applied more generally, even if they have only been tested for at a single transition. Of importance is how well the data fit each model and whether continuity in outcomes is predicted by the models across different transitions. Examples highlight research on how a specific transition, event, or ecological niche influences adolescent behavior and affect. To understand which individuals are affected by transitions and how transitions are navigated, more specific models are needed. 768This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

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Variations in pubertal timing, specifically age at menarche, have been associated with several antecedents, both genetic and environmental. Recent research has considered a broader range of environmental stressors and their influence on the development of the reproductive system. In this investigation, the following possible antecedents were considered: (a) hereditary transmission, (b) weight and weight for height, (c) stressful life events, (d) family relations, (e) absence or presence of an adult male in the household, and (f) psychological adjustment. Subjects were 75 premenarcheal girls between the ages of 10 and 14 drawn from a larger longitudinal investigation of adolescent development. Girls were from white, well-educated, middle- to upper-middle-class families and attended private schools in a northeastern urban area. While breast development, weight, family relations, and depressive affect were predictive of age at menarche, family relations predicted age at menarche above the influence of breast development or weight. A trend for maternal age at menarche to predict adolescent's age at menarche was found. Weight for height, presence of an adult male in the household, and stressful events were not predictive of age at menarche. These complex interactions of biological and psychosocial development demonstrated here may account to some extent for the inter- and intraindividual variation observed in pubertal development.