smaller girls were able to do moves that the bigger girls couldn't. so they were taking 12-14 year olds who would already naturally be smaller than 16-18 year olds, and basically starving them so that they were these little pixies who could do crazy flips and shit but couldn't get their period.

there was an expose book called Little Girls in Pretty Boxes or something like that.

They made the age limit 16 to try and minimize the damage.