Ep.55 How puberty hormones affect weight gain in teens

What Happens During Puberty?

Puberty is a time when teenagers go through a lot of changes in their bodies and inside because of big hormonal shifts.

Listen to Understand Puberty: External and Internal Changes

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

 puberty is a time period where a lot of changes , are  happening both in terms of external changes in teenagers bodies, but also internally because of all those huge hormonal fluctuations.

And you probably have noticed how a lot of. Teenagers have mood swings, they can have cravings and I just wanted to give like a basic breakdown on what are the most important  puberty hormones and how those affect the metabolism and how those affect our teenagers when they're trying to get to a healthier weight so that we can better understand how to help them and how to support them in their journey. 

So I'm going to start with One basic big hormone, which is the growth hormone. Growth hormone is a hormone that is produced by the pituitary, which is a small gland behind the eyes. And  it's responsible for growth spurt and teenagers and children that don't have enough growth hormone, they don't grow well.

Now, when it comes to growth hormone effects in terms of their body fat growth hormone is one of the hormone that supports building strong muscles and strong bones.  It helps break down the fat and make  more muscle. And this is also one of the reasons why some competitive athletes may use illegally, growth hormone because they want to increase their muscle strength.

So there is a lot of muscle mass that's happening with growth hormone. And when teenagers go into growth spurt, they have high levels of growth hormone and that is in their favor because they can build more muscle because they have higher levels of growth hormone compared to adults because adults have stopped growing.

Now the other thing that is very important when it comes to growth hormone is the fact that when growth hormone makes kids taller,  even if they don't lose any weight, they Thin out just because they have grown a lot. So they build longer bones they become taller. And therefore, even if they have the same height, they have a  better body mass index, as we call it.

If you don't know what body mass index is, I encourage you to go and listen  to episode one, where I explain more about what body mass index is, and how you can figure out what's the ideal body weight. Oh, for a child that has a particular height and weight.  Okay, so overall, growth hormone that is very high in teenagers has very beneficial effects when it comes to reducing a body fat and also promoting lean body mass, muscle mass.

So therefore, if you have more muscle mass that directly increases the metabolism because muscle  burns more calories compared to fat. All teenagers out there should be very happy that they're still growing if they're still growing because they still have high levels of growth hormone and that is beneficial for them in terms of getting to a better Weight and more ideal weight and a healthier weight. 

Okay, the second hormone is The thyroid hormone. So the thyroid is a gland that is here on the neck  And there is a hormone that is called thyroid stimulating hormone, which is again is produced by the pituitary gland, which is here behind the eyes and the pituitary gland in the brain. That hormone gives a signal to the thyroid to produce the active hormones T3 and T4.

So when the levels of the thyroid hormone are good, that stimulates good metabolism. People that have untreated hypothyroidism,  they have low T3 and low T4, that slows down their metabolism, that's why they can have increased weight gain. So too little thyroid hormone can lead to weight gain, too much thyroid hormone can lead to weight loss.

So that's one of the basic hormones we look at to make sure that the thyroid is good when we are evaluating for any hormonal imbalances, when we are evaluating for healthy weight gain versus not in teenagers.  Okay, the third  Hormone , that plays a significant role in teenagers in terms of their metabolism and their puberty hormones is the  estradiol  and testosterone.

Those are the hormones that give the. sex differences, characteristics. For example, estrogen is responsible for making girls  have more breasts, have more fat around their hips, and  they also regulate their menses. So when there are irregularities, in girls in terms of their estrogen when they're having too little estrogen or too much estrogen that can lead to abnormalities in their sexual development and they can also lead abnormalities to their fat distribution.

In general, the higher estrogen levels favor the position of body fat around the hips, the thighs, and the breast. And the reason is because human nature wants to prepare the female body for reproduction. 

And in fact, girls that don't have enough estrogen can lose their periods for the same reason.  So it is not unexpected that  Girls have more body fat compared to boys because they have more estrogen. That's normal. That's like what human nature has made girls to be different than boys.

And I want every teenager out there to hear me saying that so that they can accept their body fatness to the degree that is normal. And to the degree that is expected for them because simply they are females  and it's not because they did something wrong.  Okay. Now moving to the other hormone, which is testosterone.

Testosterone is the main driver of puberty changes in boys.  And also what testosterone does besides. Having the sexual characteristics in boys, like pubic hair, deepened voice more growth hair in the body, and all those things, it can also help to build more muscle mass. And that is the reason why, naturally, boys are more muscular than girls, because the higher testosterone levels favor their voice for building easier muscle mass.

And this is again, one of the reasons why some competitive athletes may Misuse testosterone because they want to build muscle mass now Again, I want the teenagers boys out there to hear me when I say that this is a big advantage That you can use Having higher testosterone levels can help you build more muscle mass and having more muscle mass can reduce your overall fat storage in your body.

Now, again, by itself, testosterone is not  enough, so you have to put some effort, and the more effort you put, the better. But the more muscle mass you're going to have, otherwise everybody, all men would be very muscular, which is not the case. But what I'm trying to say is that you can use this to your advantage because you are at a much better position to build muscle mass when you have a lot of testosterone. 

Okay, another hormone that is very high and low, both fluctuating levels actually during the day is the hormone that is called cortisol. So cortisol is the hormone that typically is higher in the morning. And that's when we wake up in the morning, we want to have a lot of energy. It's this fight or flight response.

And it helps us, it helps our body. It helps our body prepare for the day so that we are ready to fight for whatever comes in front of us. And while this is a good effect it can also have other effects. If it is too much cortisol, too much stress, that can lead to increased body fat. Because cortisol is a hormone that helps store fat in your body.

So Being a teenager, having this higher stress level, higher cortisol level makes you more prone to have more body fat in your body compared to if you are able to handle your stress better and not have so many cortisol fluctuations

the characteristic of having too much body fat because of higher cortisol level is that you have more body fat that tends to be around the stomach area, the abdomen area, compared to other cases when it's not so much Cortisol driven that you have a general body fatness, so too much cortisol can lead to too much fat around the belly.

And also you can also see the around the face. So the face looks like a round face,  like a moon, a kind of face. Now.  Finally, another hormone that is very important is called leptin. So leptin is the hormone that is secreted by body fat, and it tells your brain that you had enough food and you can stop.

And it helps regulate the appetite and helps regulate how much you eat and when you start to eat. In, in puberty, leptin levels are higher compared to adults. However, there's also this effect that is called leptin resistance during puberty, which basically what it means is that even though the leptin hormone can be very high during puberty, it doesn't work because it is so high levels.

So to overcome that, again,  there are lifestyle modifications that teenagers can do to help regulate this leptin resistance so that they can feel more in tune with their appetite and their wellness signals.  So To summarize the main hormones that are important for metabolism during puberty include growth hormone, thyroid hormone testosterone, estradiol,  cortisol, and leptin levels. Now, All these big fluctuations happen during puberty and I'm here to support you when you want to balance all these hormones in a healthy and natural way so that you can achieve your ideal weight.

So I will be focusing more on how to do this on future episodes, but I wanted this episode to be about the basic understanding of hormones and how they affect teenagers as they try to get into a healthier weight. I hope this was helpful and I will talk to you next week. Take care.