I could have eaten one as a fifteen year old girl but I attribute that to my parents heavy encouragement of sports and lack of body shaming compared to other families.
I’m taller than all of my siblings that were born male which I attribute to my last place in the birth order when my family was no longer food insecure and my mother had time to give me a child’s multivitamin daily.
As a result I’ve come to the conclusion that at least some of the wide difference between the average male and female body height and mass is actually child gender favoritism and body shaming (not that guys don’t get weight shamed, but that’s not usually regardless of muscle mass) resulting in nutritional deficiencies.
Interesting hypothesis. I went down the rabbit hole on it but couldn’t find supporting evidence (not to discredit your anecdotal experience of course). Seems if anything slightly the opposite on average. See for example “Sexual dimorphism in body size occurs when … living standards are high, and health correlate positively with male/female height ratio” here:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32793524/
This wouldn’t surprise me at all, tbh. My uncle (first son) is way taller than my dad (second son) because back in the day my family didn’t have much money, and they prioritized feeding the oldest son. Same genetics, different childhood diet. Uncle is like 6’2", my dad is like 5’6". If there had been a girl sibling involved, she probably would have gotten even less food.
You will never know the hunger of a 15 year old boy unless you were one
I could have eaten one as a fifteen year old girl but I attribute that to my parents heavy encouragement of sports and lack of body shaming compared to other families.
I’m taller than all of my siblings that were born male which I attribute to my last place in the birth order when my family was no longer food insecure and my mother had time to give me a child’s multivitamin daily.
As a result I’ve come to the conclusion that at least some of the wide difference between the average male and female body height and mass is actually child gender favoritism and body shaming (not that guys don’t get weight shamed, but that’s not usually regardless of muscle mass) resulting in nutritional deficiencies.
Interesting hypothesis. I went down the rabbit hole on it but couldn’t find supporting evidence (not to discredit your anecdotal experience of course). Seems if anything slightly the opposite on average. See for example “Sexual dimorphism in body size occurs when … living standards are high, and health correlate positively with male/female height ratio” here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32793524/
This wouldn’t surprise me at all, tbh. My uncle (first son) is way taller than my dad (second son) because back in the day my family didn’t have much money, and they prioritized feeding the oldest son. Same genetics, different childhood diet. Uncle is like 6’2", my dad is like 5’6". If there had been a girl sibling involved, she probably would have gotten even less food.