PEDIATRICS Vol. 53 No. 5 May 1974, pp. 845-850
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Environmental Exposures and Biologic Considerations of the Adolescent in Relation to Chemical Pollutants

Michael I. Cohen M.D.1

1 Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York

The somewhat dissimilar biologic processes occurring within the adolescent and his often unique environmental subculture place him at different and, at times, greater risk than his older or younger relalives. These potential differences and a current American census of approximately 35 to 40 million adolescents form the basis of the following discussion.

Essential to any thoughtful exploration of chemical pollutants and adolescence is a clear appreciation of the unique physiologic features1 of the teen-ager and his unusual societo-environmental subcultures. After initially viewing the adolescent as biologically in an active stage of physiologic growth, as well as being a fragile social phenomenon in the development of modern man in a rapidly changing milieu, one must next address the issue of the adolescent as a patient.2,3 Inherent in the latter concept are the features of health maintenance and disease specific to this group and the environment in which they exist. For the purposes of this discussion, only the areas of adolescent health or the adolescent environment which may predispose to attack by chemical pollutants will be pursued.

Definitions of the adolescent individual most often applied clinically deal with a chronological age coupled with the onset and termination of puberty (endocrine age); the onset of specific and obvious psychosexual behaviors and their resolution (psychological age); or the change in certain restricted anthropometric parameters (bone age, height age, weight age). Clinicians could just as easily include additional observations of dental age; legal age; intellectual age; vocational or educational age; a host of other anthropometric ages; alterations in body composition and body image; and, with the continued accumulation of more data, "ages" as defined by study of other biological processes and their maturation.




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H. Meyer
The Underweight Adolescent: Etiologic Factors and a Review
Clinical Pediatrics, December 1, 1980; 19(12): 819 - 823.
[Abstract] [PDF]