When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the U.S. in March 2020, life came to a standstill and millions of people experienced drastic changes in their lifestyles. For adolescents, this meant continuing to grow and develop despite different daily routines and circumstances, including virtual classes as schools were shut down.
Experiencing this abrupt shift herself led Cornell doctoral candidate Kathleen McCormick to wonder how the pandemic was affecting the well-established link between puberty and depression in girls. The answer, according to her recent study published in the journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, reveals something unexpected about the deeply social nature of adolescent development.
First, it’s important to note that decades of research consistently show that puberty increases depression risk in girls. Two patterns stand out: Girls who are more physically developed and girls who mature earlier than their peers tend to experience more depressive symptoms.
McCormick, who works in the Adolescent Transitions Lab at the Cornell College of Human Ecology, wanted to understand whether social interactions, which paused completely during the pandemic, contributed to this phenomenon. Her study examined nearly 600 girls across the U.S., comparing data collected before and during the pandemic.
During the…
