Ep.44 Why teenage girls have more body fat than boys

I hope every teen girl out there can listen to this episode and learn to love their body.

By exploring the science behind the hormonal shifts of puberty, we can empower our  teens with the power of knowledge and understanding. 

Let's foster a healthy mindset toward these expected changes of puberty and find inner peace by accepting the diversity of our bodies. 

If you're wondering…
❓ Why are teens hungry all the time during puberty?
❓ Why are teens craving sugar all the time?
❓ Why teens feel so tired—even when they sleep?

You’re not alone—and it’s not your fault.

Hormones play a HUGE role in how teens gain weight, feel energy, manage emotions, and grow.

Dr Gourgari is a certified pediatric endocrinologist, obesity medicine specialist and health coach for teens.

Each week, she break down how puberty hormones work—and how simple habits like eating better, sleeping more, and moving your body can help you feel better, stronger, and more confident.

We’ll talk about things like:
🥗 Are smoothies really healthy?
🍞 Are carbs bad for weight loss in teens?
💪 And how to stop emotional eating before it takes over your day.

Whether you’re a teen ready to make a change—or a parent looking to support your child the right way—this podcast is for you.

🎁 Want to jump in right now?
Grab your free guide: 30 Healthy, High-Protein Recipes for Teens at lifestyleforteens.com/recipes

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:04

This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. If you're a mom and want to help your child who is struggling to lose weight, you are in the right place. If you are looking for healthy lifestyle tips, dr Gorgery is here to help you understand the science around safe weight loss in teens and children, because what works for adult weight loss is not always the best for children. This podcast is for educational purposes only. Dr Gorgory does not provide medical, psychological or nutrition therapy advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health problems without consulting your own medical practitioner and now your host, dr Jenny Gorgory.

Speaker 2: 1:47

Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. This is Jenny Gorgory, and on today's episode, I will be discussing a little bit more about the differences in fat distribution between teenage girls and teenage boys. Now, there are significant differences in the body composition between teenage girls and boys, which also translate into fat distribution differences in adult women and men. But in this episode I'm going to focus mainly on teenagers and even though kids start at about the same rate of body fat before puberty, when they get into puberty there are hormonal changes that are different. Mainly, there is more estrogen in teenage girls and there is more testosterone in teenage boys. Also, both teenager girls and teenager boys, when they go into puberty, they have high spikes of growth hormone. When they go into puberty, they have high spikes of growth hormone.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Now, what are the effects of the growth hormone on the fat distribution? You want to have a guess? Well, fat distribution is affected by high growth hormone because growth hormone breaks down fat. Growth hormone breaks down fat. So what that means is higher levels of growth hormone improve bodybuilding of mass. So if most of your body mass is exposed to growth hormone, you're going to have more muscle than fat. And this is really why, the reason why sometimes growth hormone is abused and is used for the wrong reasons by people that want to build more muscles so they can have more growth hormone. So the question is if growth hormone breaks down fat, so both girls and boys have high growth hormone levels, then why is it that there is different fat distribution in girls than boys? And what are those differences where girls naturally have more body fat than boys?

Speaker 2: 4:13

And there was a great manuscript which described this phenomenon. The title of the manuscript is Endocrine Control of Body Composition in Fancy Childhood and Puberty. It was published in Endocrine Reviews in 2005. And I'm going to cite the manuscript for those that want to read upon it. But basically, this was a great paper that showed that while there's, as I mentioned, the same kind of body fat in pre-puberty boys, that percentage of body fat, kind of like, stays the same in boys and as they build more muscle mass as they go into puberty, the percentage of body fat decreases because they gain more muscle mass. As they go into puberty, the percentage of body fat decreases because they gain more muscle mass. Now, in girls, actually, that doesn't happen. Their body fat increases during puberty.

Speaker 2: 5:09

And what is the main hormone that is different between girls and boys in puberty? It is estrogen and testosterone. So testosterone has not a negative effect on the acts of growth hormone. However, estrogen can decrease the effects on the muscle mass building of growth hormone in girls. So because girls have higher estrogen levels, they have more fat and boys have higher levels of testosterone, which does not affect the breaking down of the fat.

Speaker 2: 5:51

That is not really caused by growth hormone, is not really caused by growth hormone, and the reason I decided to talk about this today is because I want to normalize this difference in fat distribution in girls and boys. We tend to see way more eating disorders. We tend to see way more anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating in girls compared to boys Not that we don't see it in boys, but it's way more common in girls and, of course, there are many reasons that this happens that I'm not going to go through all of that now, but my hope is that by educating more teenagers and more families about what happens normally with our fat distribution when we go into puberty, that potentially could help some of the teenagers accept their bodies because it is normal. It is normal to have more body fat as girls go through puberty and it is normal for boys to have more muscle mass as they go into puberty because they have higher levels of testosterone and girls have higher levels of estradiol and we need certain amount of body fat to be able to have reproductive function. Essentially, girls that go into puberty and menstruate, and after many years, the role of having regular periods is eventually to lead to good reproduction, right, and it's also a reason why one of the reasons why girls that have severe anorexia and they don't have enough body fat, then they lose their periods. So we do need to have a certain amount of body fat.

Speaker 2: 7:53

So Don't get too stressed out, don't get too worried about the body fat that is accumulated during the period of puberty, and it is mainly accumulated in the lower body, like it's more on the thighs areas, as are the typical female body distribution fat of body distribution. Boys it is mainly in the abdominal area and girls is mainly in around the thighs, so this is normal, okay, so take that into consideration when you are trying to decide whether you need to get to a healthier weight or whether you are healthy as you are, and I would encourage you to talk with a professional to help you determine whether you are in a healthy weight or you're not in a healthy weight. Traditionally, professionals have been using a tool that is called Body Mass Index to understand whether a certain teenager is in a healthy weight or isn't in a healthy weight. And if you don't know what BMI is, I encourage you to go back and listen to episode one of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast, and I will say that BMI does not give information about body fat distribution. It will not tell you how much fat you have. However, if your body mass index is on the lower end or lower than normal, or if your body mass index is higher than normal, meaning more than 95th percentile in a particular person's height and weight dependent BMI, then it is more likely that the fat distribution may also be abnormal.

Speaker 2: 9:45

But my take-home message is it is normal I repeat, it is normal for girls to gain a certain amount of body fat during puberty, and if you don't get a certain amount of body fat, you're at risk of not having periods and you're at risk to have reproductive issues. You're at risk of affecting your bones, because your bones are becoming stronger and stronger. You're still building strong bones during those early years in life. Even though you may not be getting taller anymore, you're still accruing bone mass, so that is important. So that's all I have for you for today. I hope that was helpful and I hope that you can look more into the distribution of body fat and realize what is normal and what is expected before you actually make any drastic decisions on what to do about it. Take care, I'll be with you again next week.

Speaker 1: 10:57

If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I invite you to come check out the Lyft program. It's Dr Gorgeri's 12-week coaching program for teens and their moms, where we take all this information, we apply it to your daily life and we work together so your teenager learns how to create a healthy lifestyle so they can feel happier, more confident, less stressed and love their body again. Visit the website at lifestyleforteenscom and click on the work with me and free resources to learn more about this program and get free help to start this journey right away. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode of Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens.