Eat More, Have a Boy, Eat Less, Have a Girl

[Pangloss]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gf8KKKMVtpIsCKAvX5WDzUm7ALbQD907LSJ05

 

Women who had boys also ate about 400 calories more daily than those who had girls, on average, she said.

 

And Dr. Michael Lu, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and public health at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the results "are certainly plausible from an evolutionary biology perspective." In other words, since boys tend to be bigger, it would make sense that it would take more calories to create them, Lu said.

 

 

In fairness, the article is suffused with cautionary reminders that this is just a statistical hint, but you KNOW people are going to go right out and start severely modifying their diets over this. Not to mention the ones who will misread the article and severely modify their diets during pregnancy.

 

Is this data useful to researchers? Maybe. But there's no science in hiring a publicist to light up the fourth estate's fax machines. That's about tenure and notoriety. This actually came from the ROYAL SOCIETY, of all places! Poor Isaac Newton must be rolling in his grave.

 

Modern science at its finest.

[iNow]

Is this data useful to researchers? Maybe. But there's no science in hiring a publicist to light up the fourth estate's fax machines. That's about tenure and notoriety. This actually came from the ROYAL SOCIETY, of all places! Poor Isaac Newton must be rolling in his grave.

 

Modern science at its finest.

 

 

 

 

I suggest you read the actual article before talking about people rolling in graves. An AP article is hardly the best representation of the actual work being done.

 

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/w260687441pp64w5/

You are what your mother eats: evidence for maternal preconception diet influencing foetal sex in humans

 

 

Facultative adjustment of sex ratios by mothers occurs in some animals, and has been linked to resource availability. In mammals, the search for consistent patterns is complicated by variations in mating systems, social hierarchies and litter sizes. Humans have low fecundity, high maternal investment and a potentially high differential between the numbers of offspring produced by sons and daughters: these conditions should favour the evolution of facultative sex ratio variation. Yet little is known of natural mechanisms of sex allocation in humans. Here, using data from 740 British women who were unaware of their foetus's gender, we show that foetal sex is associated with maternal diet at conception. Fifty six per cent of women in the highest third of preconceptional energy intake bore boys, compared with 45% in the lowest third. Intakes during pregnancy were not associated with sex, suggesting that the foetus does not manipulate maternal diet. Our results support hypotheses predicting investment in costly male offspring when resources are plentiful. Dietary changes may therefore explain the falling proportion of male births in industrialized countries. The results are relevant to the current debate about the artificial selection of offspring sex in fertility treatment and commercial ‘gender clinics’.

 

Notice also in the abstract when diet is relevant.

[insane_alien]

i thought sex was decided by the sperm(whether it has an X or Y chromosone)

 

i could see it depending on the fathers diet perhaps but not the mothers.

[Mr Skeptic]

i thought sex was decided by the sperm(whether it has an X or Y chromosone)

 

i could see it depending on the fathers diet perhaps but not the mothers.

 

That is true too, but the female ultimately has some control too. For one thing, the X chromosome is larger than the Y chromosome. In any case, a female is much likelier to conceive a female child during bad times, because a male takes more energy and must be "high quality" to be a good investment (as a poor male's chances of mating are far worse than a poor female's chances). On the other hand, a "high quality" male can have many more offspring than a "high quality" female. This kind of study has been done before, but I don't know if it was in humans.

[Pangloss]

I suggest you read the actual article before talking about people rolling in graves. An AP article is hardly the best representation of the actual work being done.

 

I think you might've missed my point (although I can see how you got that given my last sentence). I don't have a problem with the study, in so far as it may be useful to future research, I have a problem with someone releasing the hounds of the press on this and playing it up just to ensure their tenure (or whatever happened). The press doesn't read academic journals, they respond to the ringing of their fax machines. Somebody publicized this in order to garner attention. That's why it appeared in (according to Google news) 528 news sources on the same day. I have no doubt it will run on all three major networks tonight. There's a reason for this, and it's NOT because it was published in an academic journal.

 

I used to work as an intern at CNN. Granted this was years ago, but my job was to pull press releases from fax machines and organize them for the "reporters" who would then read them and start calling experts for responses and verification. Well you get three guesses what kind of stories I was supposed to look for, and your first two guesses don't count. Only the most sensational stuff got reported, and its accuracy or relevency was quite irrelevent, so long as a scientist was saying it. That's how they reported science news. It was pathetic then and so far as I can tell it hasn't changed since.

 

They only paid those guys 15.5k (albeit 1990 dollars). Who's gonna roam the halls of Georgia Tech or pound the pavement at the Centers for Disease Control (both of which are just a few miles from CNN world headquarters) for that kind of money when the fax machine is chock full of ready-made stories, complete with names and phone numbers, just begging to be run? They're just going to re-word the press release, hand it to the anchor, change the paper and toner cartridge and call it a day.

 

Meanwhile thousands of hopeful (and pregnant!) women will now change their diets -- some very dramatically -- with all the consequences THAT entails -- all because of a slight statistical bump. But those researchers, by golly, they got their tenure! That's the important thing!

 

 

Notice also in the abstract when diet is relevant.

 

Not sure what you mean there. I already noted that the study was about diet prior to pregnancy, which is what the abstract and the articles seem to say.

[Klaynos]

There's also a newscientist article on this, the swing is about 5% either way.

 

I'd quite like to read the article to understand how they controlled this, as people who eat more, or eat cerial every day are surely likely to have different lifestyle aspects as well.

[iNow]

The press doesn't read academic journals, they respond to the ringing of their fax machines. Somebody publicized this in order to garner attention.

Hmmm... I'm not so sure on this one. I appreciate your first hand account of how things worked during your internship, but one would imagine that there are some people in the press who DO read academic journals and that some media ACTIVELY search journals for nuggets of information to misrepresent during their efforts to increase readership/viewers.

 

This is not to say that some people don't market their publications to the press, just that I disagree with your spin that this was only done in some vain attempt to "garner attention." That's a very bold statement, and I doubt that you can support it with evidence.

 

 

Meanwhile thousands of hopeful (and pregnant!) women will now change their diets -- some very dramatically -- with all the consequences THAT entails -- all because of a slight statistical bump. But those researchers, by golly, they got their tenure! That's the important thing!

I still don't understand your need to rail against the researchers for no reason (unless, you've seen something I haven't, and you have data that clearly shows how these researchers are "monsters"). Also, pregnant women won't be changing their diet as a result of a "statistical bump," but instead as a result of an inability to read the study closely and understand what it is actually saying. This is why I made the mention to notice when this effect was occurring. I can see that you knew this, but your continued mention of how pregnant women would react during their pregnancies implied to me otherwise.

 

 

Anyway, thanks for sharing. This was an interesting read.

 

 

 

 

 

I'd quite like to read the article to understand how they controlled this, as people who eat more, or eat cerial every day are surely likely to have different lifestyle aspects as well.

 

 

Here it is in .pdf format from the link I shared above. Enjoy.

 

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/w260687441pp64w5/fulltext.pdf

[ParanoiA]

My wife didn't appreciate it that I called her freaking pig last night since she gave me two boys. Thanks Pangloss.

[john5746]

From a common sense standpoint, it would seem to me that caloric intake deciding sex of the baby would have had devastating results already. I would expect many more females in some parts of Africa and more males in America, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

I wonder if women who are carrying boys have hormonal changes that increase their appetite - if only for a certain mineral or something.

 

In my family, across three generations, the men tend to have either girls or boys but not both. It appears the men are determining the sex of the kids, but that is a small sample and special case.

[iNow]

I wonder if women who are carrying boys have hormonal changes that increase their appetite - if only for a certain mineral or something.

That was my first reaction, as well. However, look again at when the effect occurs, and you'll see that this perspective is displaced from what the study is actually showing and describing.

[john5746]

That was my first reaction, as well. However, look again at when the effect occurs, and you'll see that this perspective is displaced from what the study is actually showing and describing.

 

Yep, I should have read your link, clears that up.

[Pangloss]

Hmmm... I'm not so sure on this one. I appreciate your first hand account of how things worked during your internship, but one would imagine that there are some people in the press who DO read academic journals and that some media ACTIVELY search journals for nuggets of information to misrepresent during their efforts to increase readership/viewers.

 

Well, I will admit that I don't have any first-hand knowledge of this specific case, and you're right, it's always possible. It just seems highly unlikely to me, given the way the story was distributed. Usually in cases like the one you describe, the story will appear first in the New York Times or one of the other first-tier organizations. In this case the first appearance seems to be an Associated Press wire story. Those are quite often "redistributed faxes" (like the scenario I described), and the AP doesn't have any scientists under its employ -- it leaves that kind of reporting to the "face" outlets like the Times. So what probably happened here is that one of the people involved in the study faxed it off to the AP, perhaps on a lark (perhaps not), and the AP decided to put it on the wire.

 

One thing that I think would be really helpful is a "story tracker" application, Web 2.0 style. Something like Google News, but more like a wiki instructure, showing the geneology of a story from its point of origin, and allowing editable notations. I've yet to see something like that, but I think it would be good to have for cases like this where you're wondering who created the media frenzy and why.

 

 

Also, pregnant women won't be changing their diet as a result of a "statistical bump," but instead as a result of an inability to read the study closely and understand what it is actually saying.

 

I agree, that's on the media. But if a researcher (I did say "if") played this story to the media to gain his tenure or some other prestige element, then I think it's clearly on him or her as well.

 

My wife didn't appreciate it that I called her freaking pig last night since she gave me two boys. Thanks Pangloss.

 

Oh dear. Sorry man.

[ParanoiA]

Hmmm... I'm not so sure on this one. I appreciate your first hand account of how things worked during your internship, but one would imagine that there are some people in the press who DO read academic journals and that some media ACTIVELY search journals for nuggets of information to misrepresent during their efforts to increase readership/viewers.

 

I'll freely admit this is anecdotal, but the two times I was directly involved in a news story, (and not national) it was grossly, deliberately misrepresented. I have a very piss poor outlook on news media. They are a business and are never called out like one. I can only guess it's some psychological byproduct where the "accuser" naturally escapes accusation.

 

One thing that I think would be really helpful is a "story tracker" application, Web 2.0 style. Something like Google News, but more like a wiki instructure, showing the geneology of a story from its point of origin, and allowing editable notations. I've yet to see something like that, but I think it would be good to have for cases like this where you're wondering who created the media frenzy and why.

 

I like that idea. Alot.

[iNow]

But if a researcher (I did say "if") played this story to the media to gain his tenure or some other prestige element, then I think it's clearly on him or her as well.

Again, why do you keep suggesting this? Do you have some sort of evidence to corroborate that this is what's occurring? If not, I fail to see why you've chosen to bring it up so many times since it's nothing more than consperatorial conjecture.

[Pangloss]

It is my opinion, iNow, based on relevent past experience (which you've acknowledged). I've acknowledged your point as well. Let's move on.

[Royston]

This thread reminds me of the workout DVD that was released, where you use your baby as an exercise aid. Boys on average are bigger than girls, so Mum's can rest easy by using their baby boy to fight off those extra pounds.

[thedarkshade]

One of my cousins is about 90kg, and she's had 4 girls 'in a row'. Should I tell her to eat more?