Do Calories Count for Gender Selection?

Diet is an important part of natural gender selection -- in fact, it's consistently supported by research.  What's the most important part of your diet for natural gender selection?  The foods you eat count, but the overall number of calories you get every day also counts. 

What the Studies Show

Calories and overall nutrient levels can make a big difference in the gender of your baby.  Research studies like the Oxford study show that moms who have more sons eat more calories -- significantly more calories.  Women who had daughters ate significantly less calories than those moms having boys.  For sons, women were eating 2,400+ calories a day.  Women with daughters were eating closer to 1,500 - 1,800 calories per day.

Studies also show there's a strong correlation with overall nutrient intake.  Women who are getting more calories are getting higher levels of nutrients.  These are the moms most likely to have boys.  The moms getting lower calories and lower nutrients have girls.

The Trivers-Willard Hypothesis

There is a hypothesis that lends support to the conclusions drawn from the research above. The Trivers-Willard hypothesis suggests that in times of plenty, mothers are more likely to have sons.  In times of famine and stress, mothers are more likely to have daughters.

A lot of the work connecting this hypothesis to gender selection has been done via independent research from Atomic Sagebrush.  She's pulled together all these studies and hypotheses to create a workable plan for getting a daughter or son.   Her "high everything" and "low everything" diets are based on the Trivers-Willard hypothesis.

The reason why Trivers-Willard suggested the gender ration changed happened is boys require more calories from the moment of conception. They require more energy to get from brand new baby in its mother's womb to a grown man successfully having children. The theory is that during times of plenty, it's much more likely that the calories and the food is going to be there to help this little baby boy go from a tiny baby in his mother's womb to a grown man who is able to father his own children.

In times of famine, a girl (who requires far fewer calories throughout her life) is much more likely to grow and be able to have a baby. The Trivers-Willard Hypothesis states that these things happen for the perpetuation of our species.

Whether you believe in the whole evolutionary theory or not that's built into that is up to you to decide. The fact that boys take more calories and girls take less calories is true, however.

How to Get Your Desired Gender

What can you do if you want a boy? Eat all your vegetables! Getting more protein and more fat increases your calories throughout the day and gives you significantly more nutrition. More nutrients going in via a more nutrient-dense diet mean you're increasing your chances of getting a boy by increasing your nutrition. Again, eat your vegetables. Eat the protein. Shoot for 2,400-2,500 calories a day. Salt to taste. Make sure that you're getting good amounts of fat. Drink whole milk, preferably unprocessed whole milk. These guidelines make you more likely to get a boy.

You want to limit things in your diet if you want a girl. Eat the more carbohydrate-heavy and nutrient-skimpy diet because carbohydrates provide our bodies with sugar and not much else. Grain products can provide B vitamins, magnesium and a few other nutrients, but really, when it comes to nutrient density, animal products are what give us the best bang for our buck. Grains are hard to digest and relatively nutrient-poor.  Women hoping for a girl typically look to grain products and get a minimum amount of protein a day from plant-based sources like beans.

Atomic Sagebrush recommends that a women trying to conceive a girl get around 1,700 calories a day because that is a level where she can safely conceive a baby and it doesn't impact fertility, but has still been shown to favor a girl conception.


Photo by juhansonin