Healthy diet may make more boy babies

by Debra McDuffee (Subscribe to Debra McDuffee's posts)
Apr 23rd 2008 2:00PM

Categories: Womens Health, Diet & Weight Loss, Nutrition & Supplements

Have you been wondering why it seems that so many more women have been giving birth to boy babies lately? According to British scientists, it could be because more women are eating a healthy diet.

Apparently, there is a link between skipping breakfast and not getting a wide range of calories and nutrients and having a baby girl. They really think that having breakfast cereal once a day produces more male offspring.

Critics are all over this one, and I say with good reason. First of all, processed breakfast cereal is not a part of a good diet in my opinion. The study's results should have focused more on the wide range of nutrients throughout the day that were important. Are we just trying to sell cereal for the big name food industry?

A healthy diet when you are pregnant -- heck, anytime -- is always a good idea, but don't be looking for a baby boy to be a sure thing out of the deal.

Source

Comments (11)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Meg 4-23-2008 @ 2:10PM

Say what? What's wrong with breakfast cereal??

Donna 4-23-2008 @ 2:45PM

A baby's sex is determined at conception by the chromosome X or Y in the father's sperm that fertilizes the egg. What you eat has no affect whatsoever. Where did this article come from?

Chris 4-23-2008 @ 3:03PM

Since she didn't bother to provide any links to the study, I'll explain that it originally said that diet at conception supposedly affected sex of the baby. So, mothers who were on calorie-restricted diets when they conceived were slightly more likely to have girls.

eckre 4-23-2008 @ 3:24PM

what's right with breakfast cereal? add 1 egg and you have the same ingredients for a cake.

debra.mcduffee 4-23-2008 @ 4:13PM

Breakfast cereal info: http://westonaprice.org/modernfood/dirty-secrets.html

The link to the Reuters article is in my post, under the "read" section. That is where the study was reported. I have added a link to the text of the post, too; sorry for that omission.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24262928/

Hope this information helps someone out! :-)

Nova11 4-23-2008 @ 5:13PM

Um...i just got into a huge conversation this past sunday about how to have a boy or a girl. I was informed that "position" during sex can affect whether or not you have a boy or girl(not diet). Since boy sperm are slower swimmers, they say that "missionary position" is best to conceive boys. Gravity works in their favor i guess...lol. As for conceiving girls...i suppose any other way is favorable(like the woman being on top). I had fraternal twins....both boys which i believe were conceived missionary style...so maybe there is some truth to this. (The person telling me this had studied fertility for several years.)

As for breakfast cereal?? Ha....!

Mike 4-24-2008 @ 1:12AM

This is an old wives tale. Position during sex makes no difference whatsoever. The egg is not fertilized immediately after ejaculation-- so based on what you're saying, if the woman decides to stand up after sex, she'll be favoring a girl.

Kyle 4-24-2008 @ 12:43AM

I've found this kind of offensive, as if if one eats a "healthy" diet, they'll have the "healthier" or "better" of the sexes - a boy. If one eats a "weak" deficient diet, then one thus gets a "weak" and lousy second rate girl! Feminists should be all over this one.

Mike 4-24-2008 @ 1:13AM

Population studies have shown that in times of famine, conception of female babies is favored.

The rationale given is that if a group is going through a time when survival is threatened (ex: famine), having more girls will enable the species to persist.

Think about it, if you have one boy and 10 girls, you can still have 10 new offspring per year. If you have one girl and 10 boys, the possibility for offspring is only 1 baby per year.

So perhaps these women skipping breakfast are somehow activating "survival genes" that promote the conception of XX babies...

Cindy 4-24-2008 @ 9:54AM

Diet does influence the gender of an unborn baby. I just bought the Girl Gender Diet from: http://boygirldiet.com/

Meg 4-24-2008 @ 12:57PM

Thanks for posting the link about breakfast cereal, but that's all baloney! Most people who know anything about nutrition aren't eating corn flakes OR puffed wheat, as mentioned in the two "unpublished" (which means they didn't pass standards for peer review, incidentally) studies cited by that web site, they're eating whole grain cereals.

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet, especially if it's a web site pushing one guy's personal health agenda with no actual science to back it up!