Development of the human body used to approximately judge a child's age based on physical development. Puberty is the process of physical changes through which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of sexual reproduction. It is initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads: the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy. In response to the signals, the gonads produce hormones that stimulate libido and the growth, function, and transformation of the brain, bones, muscle, blood, skin, hair, breasts, and sex organs. Physical growth—height and weight—accelerates in the first half of puberty and is completed when an adult
Catholic theology of the body and the Israelites. By giving man a perishable body, man was saved from the deep fall of Lucifer into eternal damnation. Gregory does not describe the human body before the fall, but he states that the bodily existence of man was free of any illness, needs or problems. The human body was related to God and free of sin towards him. The fall consisted in false pride, a revolt against God. Regarding the relation between body and soul, Gregory states, the body is related to the soul, like the way in which the soul is related to God. To explain