Going Bananas for Bad Puns
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
This little piece of news has been getting a lot of coverage–I think because it lets headline writers indulge their love for cute pun-related headlines–but I still couldn’t resist. Apparently, there may be a connection between a mother’s diet before she conceives and the gender of the baby. More specifically, a good appetite, with a lot of potassium-rich foods (like bananas, hence the journalistic puns), and not skipping breakfast seems to raise the odds of having a boy. The theory goes that the extra calories and nutrients may be needed to help boy babies grow, and that the diet somehow (err. . . .how to put this delicately) makes for a more hospitable situation. (Maybe that was too delicate.)
Anyway, the opposite of the higher calorie, high potassium diet can be associated with low blood sugar, which seems to be a problem for male embryos. It all makes sense (sort of), as it’s fairly well established that boy babies tend to be more likely to encounter complications in utero, so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they do better with more calories and nutrients available. Needless to say the scientists behind the study (as well as any good nutritionist or doctor) advise against changing one’s diet drastically in order to influence sex selection–it’s not necessarily healthy, nor is it guaranteed to work. So, if you’re not a fan of bananas, take heart. I hate bananas myself with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. (It’s the texture–they’re so mushy.) But I did have two boys. I will admit, however, that I probably had the 400 extra calories a day covered. I don’t know if that influenced the gender of my babies, but if so, that’s about the only good thing I can say about it.
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