Growing up will take a little longer if a group of new scientists get their way.

In a new opinion piece in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal, a group of seven academics make a case for redefining adolescence from ages 10-19 to 10-24. It is a redefinition, they say, that reflects an evolving society where puberty hits earlier, bodies develop into the 20s, and where young people leave home, get married, have children and gain economic independence later than ever.

“Adolescence encompasses elements of biological growth and major social role transitions, both of which have changed in the past century,” they write in the article, published Wednesday.

“Arguably, the transition period from childhood to adulthood now occupies a greater portion of the life course than ever before at a time when unprecedented social forces, including marketing and digital media, are affecting health and wellbeing across these years.”

The call for redefinition is an attempt to ensure health policy safeguards the future health of the 1.8 billion people aged 10-24 who make up more than a quarter of the world’s population, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

“An expanded and more inclusive definition of adolescence is essential for developmentally appropriate framing of laws, social policies, and service systems,” the new article reads. It’s not the first time lead author professor Susan Sawyer, director of the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne has discussed redefining adolescence. In a 2012 study on the subject, she wrote that inconsistent age definitions only serve to compound the problem of addressing adolescent health concerns. Some information systems define people ages 15-19 as “adults,” which will “effective render adolescence invisible.”

“Good information systems are an important step towards making adolescents and their health more visible to policy makers, researchers, donors and development partners,” she wrote in 2012. Sawyer and her co-authors suggest a definition of adolescence across three age categories, 10-14 years, 15-19 years, and 20-24 years. That is how Statistics Canada defines young years, often further describing the 15-19 years as “adolescents” and the 20-24 years as “young adults.”

Some academics contest the Lancet piece, including sociologist Jan Macvarish from the University of Kent, who tweeted that “science really can't tell us how to live our lives and raise our children and what adulthood means.”

But Sawyer is intent on a redefinition. She found that much research on the adolescent years tends to focus on children under the age of five instead of the later years when minds and bodies continue to develop which she tweeted in November ahead of the new article’s release.

“Let’s make adolescents visible,” she wrote.