UNDATED (CNN) -- Parents may want to have that chat with their kids about "changes" a little sooner. According to a new study in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, boys are now going through puberty earlier than ever before.
Boys are hitting puberty about six-months to two-years earlier than they did in previous decades. The numbers are broken down by race.
African American boys are hitting puberty at around 9-years-old. For white boys it's about a year later at 10-years-old. For Hispanic boys, it's a little bit later, 10.4-years-old.
Now this has some pediatricians worried because they know girls have been hitting puberty early for some time now and when they do, sometimes though girls get depressed and have some kind of other emotional problems.
Now we don't really know why this is happening. That's really the big question. It might be because of the hormones that are in the foods we eat. It might be because of pollutants in the air. It may be because boys tend to be heavier than they used to be.
Or it may be none of those. They're still trying to figure it out. Now while they figure it out, parents should keep in mind they should probably be having a little talk about puberty with boys at an earlier age than they had previously thought.
We did talk to one pediatrician who said that when parents talk to her and they're concerned, she tells them 'if you want to, you can do things like: use containers that don't contain BPA in them, eat foods, drink milk that doesn't have hormones.
These don't mean that it will help keep your child from reaching puberty too early, but these things can't hurt either.