Boying Up Read online

  I’m going to break this down and tell you only the things you really need to know about menstruation, and I’ll make it very brief. I’ll even use bullet points so you know I won’t elaborate much! Here we go:

  A period comes about once a month and usually lasts 5 to 7 days.

  An egg cell is super teeny tiny, like smaller than the dot on this letter i, but when it comes out, it comes out with the lining of the uterus, which means there is blood.

  There isn’t a lot of blood, but it has to be “contained,” and girls typically use menstrual pads or tampons.

  During a period, girls and women sometimes feel achy, crampy or cranky. This is normal—it’s due to all of the hormones making menstruation happen!

  It’s not cool to tease girls about having their period or say it’s gross or make up weird names for it; just chill out and let nature do its thing!

  Behavior

  The hormones that get activated to make all of the changes happen during puberty don’t just affect our bodies; they also alter our behavior. During puberty, boys and girls start acting differently and taking interest in things in a different way. You might start caring more about how you look, wondering about dating and thinking more about your body—and it’s all because of your hormones. The puberty hormones are getting you ready to be a grown-up and eventually a parent, if you choose to be a dad.

  Have you ever heard people talk about how different boys and girls are? Well, during puberty they become even more different in many cases. Boys have a certain set of DNA in every cell of their bodies, which contains genetic information and messengers. A boy’s DNA is programmed to make you generally behave in certain ways. And girls have a different set of DNA that makes them generally behave in certain other ways. You may have heard the word masculine used to describe traditionally male behaviors and feminine used to describe traditionally female behaviors. These don’t always apply to every boy or girl you know, but I’m sure you can think of examples from your own life of masculine and feminine behaviors and characteristics. Here are some common stereotypes that we often hear about boys and girls, which relate to masculine and feminine qualities.

  MASCULINE

  FEMININE

  Boys like cars and wrestling and superhero movies and making jokes about farts and burps.

  Girls like to dress up and put on makeup and do their nails and think about boys.

  Boys aren’t good communicators.

  Girls spend a ton of time talking on the phone and texting their friends and looking at social media.

  Boys like rough sports.

  Girls don’t like playing rough or even getting dirty.

  Boys are unemotional.

  Girls are super emotional.

  Do any of these descriptions sound wrong, or do they not match someone you know? For example, do you know any boys who like to dress up and are kind of emotional? I do. Do you know any girls who love cars and sports and superhero movies? I’m sure you do. (I was that type of girl, and I’m that type of woman!) There are certain things about boys and girls that are true a lot of the time in all different parts of the world. For example, the stereotype that girls talk more than boys is pretty much true everywhere in the world. But does that mean that every single girl talks more than every single boy? Of course not. It just means that in general, certain things about girls and boys are true.

  Even though our DNA determines whether we have a penis or a vagina, and even though our DNA generally guides how we behave, there is a lot of variation in how people act, and that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them. There are boys who are masculine and boys who are not very masculine. And there are girls who are feminine and girls who are not as feminine. And that’s okay.

  A lot of times, boys who are not masculine and girls who are not feminine get teased for being different. This can be really painful for them. It is important to understand that there are all different kinds of people and there is nothing wrong with being different. There are some places in the world where people accept only two genders as possible identifications. In other places, people can be described as male, female, or another category of gender that has qualities of both masculine and feminine. Some cultures even have several different ways they describe people’s gender, and descriptions of more than two genders have been recorded for thousands of years.

  Countries around the world with cultures that recognize more than two genders.

  There has been a lot of discussion in the United States in the past few years about people who feel that even though their DNA says that they are male, they don’t feel male, or if their DNA says that they are female, they don’t feel female. Some people who feel that way want their external appearance to match their internal feelings. Other people don’t. There’s not a right or a wrong answer to what to do in that situation.

  What is important to acknowledge is that not everybody’s body works the same as anyone else’s, and no one can know what is going on in someone else’s brain and heart. There has been some really neat scientific research looking at the hormone levels in the brains and bodies of people who say they feel like they don’t match their DNA. Research indicates that there are true hormonal differences, and my hope is that we can find a way for all people to feel welcome living however they feel the most comfortable.

  Wrapping Up

  We’ve talked about some big stuff in this chapter. We talked about how puberty takes you from being a boy to a young man to eventually becoming a full-on grown-up man. You may have a parent who’s cool with talking to you about the changes in your body and how they affect you, but a lot of times, it can be hard to talk about this stuff with your parents or even with your older siblings or friends. Keep in mind that most boys your age and even a little older don’t always have accurate information about these kinds of things . . . so always double check with a more reliable source! And a lot of boys don’t feel the need to talk this stuff through; it just kind of happens. That’s fine, too.

  I hope this chapter has helped answer some questions about not only your body but the bodies of the girls you know, because it’s important to have that information in order to make you a better man. And sometimes the stuff kids talk about isn’t scientifically accurate, and it can be confusing to not really know what’s going on. Information and knowledge about everything makes for excellent Boying Up.

  TWO

  • HOW BOY BODIES GROW •

  I wrote a book when my sons were younger with our family pediatrician about the science of nutrition and diet choices and the importance of putting a lot of thought into how we feed our bodies. Now that we’ve talked about how a body gets to be male and how puberty begins to turn boys into men, let’s talk about what your body needs to stay strong. Even though Boying Up requires many decisions about what to wear, what music to download, and how to act on a date, what’s really important is what’s inside of you—and what you eat and how you treat your body matters a lot, especially as you start puberty. It’s very important to understand how our bodies use the fuel we give them when we eat and drink and how that fuel turns boys into healthy men.

  Drink!

  Let’s start with the basics. About 60 percent of the human body is made up of water. That means that all of the molecules that we are made of—oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus—combine to make us mostly water! The amount of water in our bodies can change if we don’t drink enough—or if we drink too much—since the body needs to be hydrated in a very special way. There are minerals called electrolytes in blood, urine and all of our body’s fluids. We take them in from the foods we eat and the beverages we drink. Sodium, potassium and calcium are all electr
olytes. The thing about electrolytes is that they carry an electric charge; some are positively charged, and some are negatively charged—think of them like batteries with a positive or negative end. We have to have the right amount of electrolyte charges for our bodies to function properly. Without the right balance, we can get really sick.

  What this boils down to is that your body needs tons of water, and most people don’t drink as much water as they should. We should aim to drink as many ounces as half of our body weight per day. So if you weigh 120 pounds, aim for 60 ounces of water, for example (that’s approximately half a gallon).

  Here are some of the things that can happen to you and your body if you get dehydrated because you haven’t had enough water. Spoiler alert: none of them are fun.

  Dry lips and mouth

  Cracking skin

  Not sleeping well

  Feeling tired all day

  Getting sick a lot

  Having a hard time concentrating

  Muscle cramps

  Headaches

  Dizziness

  Bad breath

  Not being able to poop (!)

  I’m not going to claim that I never drink soda or juice, but I try to do it very rarely and mostly for special occasions. Why limit it? Well, soda and juice taste good because they are full of sugar, and sugar tastes great. But the problem with sugar is that it kind of messes with the chemistry of the body and can make you feel cranky and jittery or sore in the stomach. Sugar is bad for teeth because it’s the favorite food of the bacteria that live in your mouth. Too much sugar eventually wears away the protective enamel layer of the teeth, which leads to cavities. Too much sugar also weakens the immune system, which makes you less likely to be able to fight off things like colds or the flu. Also, sugar has addictive properties, which means that sugar gets into the cells of the body in such a way that when the body doesn’t have sugar, it makes you feel like you need it. Not getting sugar when the body is addicted to it makes you feel grumpy and shaky and out of it. The more sugar you eat, the more chances you give your body to get addicted, so I recommend cutting back on sugary drinks now for your body’s sake.

  Water World Experiment

  Drinking only water every day all day might sound awful; I know. But it might be worth trying as an experiment—even for a few weeks. Adding sliced oranges, cucumbers, or berries makes it taste more interesting than drinking it plain. And keep in mind that you need to give your body a few weeks to adjust to cutting back on sugary drinks; it takes some time for your body to lose the craving. If you do a 2-week experiment and add to your experiment cutting back on other high-sugar treats, you’ll probably be impressed at the shift in your taste buds.

  Eat Up!

  The government recommends that meals in the United States include foods from the following categories: fruits and vegetables, protein, grains and dairy (or a nondairy source of calcium if you choose to stay away from dairy). Here are the basics of what you need to know about all of the things there are to eat.

  FRUITS & VEGETABLES

  Have you ever heard how important it is to eat your vegetables? Well, it is. Same for fruits. Fruits and vegetables contain vitamins and minerals such as potassium, fiber, thiamin, niacin, folate (folic acid) and vitamins A, B, C, D and K. The body takes all of these in and uses them to do things like make muscles strong, keep you healthy, keep your skin looking good and keep your brain working well so you can not only pay attention in class but also have a lot of leftover energy after school to shoot hoops, play video games and hang out with friends. Vitamins and minerals do so many things in the body, and without them, we’d really be in bad shape. So please: eat your vegetables—and your fruits!

  Fruits and vegetables are especially important to eat in as natural a form as possible. Meaning: however the fruit or vegetable grows is probably the healthiest way to eat it, and if it needs cooking, the less you add to it, the better. So instead of drenching strawberries in maple syrup and covering them with powdered sugar, learn to love strawberries exactly as they are. And think about a sweet potato. The healthiest way to eat it is baked, not mixed with marshmallows and sugar and butter and made into a sweet potato casserole—although if you’re going to eat it that way, once a year on Thanksgiving is a good time to do that. With a few exceptions (such as carrots, tomatoes and eggplant, which actually increase in nutritional value when you cook them a little bit), pretty much every fruit and vegetable is healthier to eat just the way it grows or with only slight cooking and very little sauce on it.

  PROTEIN

  When you think of protein, you probably think of the most common way people in the United States eat protein: by eating meat. Chicken, beef, pork, lamb and fish are the most commonly known sources of protein in this country. Protein is what all of the cells are made of in every single part of the body and brain. And protein itself is made up of collections of elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These elements combine to make what are called amino acids, and there are 20 of them, 9 of which the body cannot produce on its own and are called essential amino acids because they are . . . well, essential. In order for the body to support the brain, spinal cord, digestive system, kidneys and immune system properly, we need to eat things with plenty of protein to get all of those amino acids. Without the correct amount of protein, our muscles won’t work, we can’t even think straight, and damage to our cells can become hard to repair by the body’s natural protective methods. Boys and men need more protein than girls and women since the composition of their bodies is different and the hormones that vary in men and women change the way protein is metabolized and used by the body. Even though boys and men need to consume more protein than girls and women (56 grams a day for adult men versus 46 grams a day for women), too much protein can cause health problems as well, so it’s important to find out how much protein you actually need.

  While in our country eating animal protein is very common, there are many healthy countries around the world where people don’t get all of their protein from animals; they get it from non-animal sources such as beans, nuts and seeds. You can also find protein in things like rice and even bread and pasta. People who don’t eat meat for health reasons or because they don’t like the idea of animals being used for food can still get the right amount of protein.

  Protein Powder

  Protein powder is something that’s added to foods like shakes or smoothies to increase the amount of protein you consume without you taking in as many extra calories as you would by eating foods packed with protein. Protein powders tend to be marketed to young men during puberty because they are the ones who can be most enticed by promises like “build more muscle faster!” The fact is that if you eat a well-rounded diet, you are likely already getting enough protein. In addition, too much protein can be hard on your kidneys and can lead to dehydration in teenagers. Consulting with a doctor about your protein intake is important, especially if you like lifting weights or are looking to bulk up. Don’t be swayed by the expensive and fantastical claims of the protein powder and protein drink industry!

  And although there has been a trend of young people adopting a vegetarian or vegan diet as a way to lose weight (or for philosophical reasons), avoiding or limiting the animal products you consume is a lifestyle choice that should be done with care and conscious decision making; it’s not a way to lose weight. Girls aren’t the only ones concerned with body weight. More and more, boys are feeling the pressure to be skinny and fit, and restricting your eating is not a solution to body image concerns. We will talk more about eating disorders later on in this chapter.

  THAT’S WHAT HE SAID . . .

  “I choose to be vegan, and the reason has less to do with animal rights than with general health. Healthful eating decisions are a really important thing for me, which was not always the case. I treat my body as a
sanctuary. It can be socially isolating at times; it’s probably harder for guys than women. And it’s particularly difficult in the dating world because most of the women I date are neither vegans nor vegetarians. It can be awkward, and I also don’t drink alcohol for the same reason I don’t eat animal products or processed foods. I don’t feel like there’s a real health benefit to drinking alcohol. These things are very important to me, and I have to deal with those choices on a daily basis.”

  Where’s the Beef?

  Meat, cheese and fish are not the only ways to get protein! Here are some of my favorite ways to get protein without using animal sources.

  Beans: Ever had three-bean chili? It’s one of the best ways to get a high-protein meal. Adding beans to burritos, salads and even pastas is an easy way to get plenty of protein. Beans are especially good when they’re turned into spreads like hummus (which is one of my younger son’s top 5 favorite foods of all time), so keep an open mind about beans.