15 Of The Most Interesting Facts About Boys And Girls

 It shouldn't be recent news that boys and girls are very different; from physical features, reproductive organs and in some cases behavioural methods. It is not hard to differentiate between a male and a female with all this on ground.

The difference between these two genders extend beyond the mere physical features and 

goes as far as brain activity and response to issues. For example a large number of parents will admit that raising boys requires a lot more energy than girls.

Furthermore, it has been proven that even if a parent raises their child in a non-gender-stereotyped manner, 80% of them will still respond in traditional ways most people believe that gender should. For the most part kids will play with any toy, but most girls still prefer to play with dolls and figurines where boys still prefer machines and vehicles.

Though some have said that this has it more to do with the way the children are trained, but scientists have stated that they suspect that before birth, the brain of the male and that of the female child develop differently in order to shape them into distinct creatures. There are even gender difference in reactions. Females react differently to drives than males will not and vice versa.

The moment a pregnant woman - who is already showing - talks about her pregnancy, most people want to know the answer to one question, "is it a boy or a girl?" Another thing people love to do with pregnant women is gender guessing. They have various ways to predict what it is in the pregnant woman's womb. All this will be addressed in his article containing 20 crazy facts about boys versus girls.

1.

Who Uses Their Brain Better?

Scientists have proven that the brains of boys utilize nearly seven times more gray matter for actions than the brain of girls. On the other hand, female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter than male brains. This is responsible for boys having the ability to focus on games and the like that require a lot of concentration.

The connections in the brain are not as attuned to focusing on many things at the same time. Gray matter is also responsible for our senses, such as speech, eyesight and hearing, and control of the muscles. Which may account for the reason men are generally better athletes.

The white matter connects the gray matter and other processing centers together. It allows the different portions of the brain to communicate with each other. This is the reason for girls’ ability to multitask more than boys, and also to be able to quickly transition from one task to another, making girls great multitaskers and boys one task focused humans.

White matter is also responsible for bodily functions such as blood pressure, hormones, control of food and water intake and the translation of emotions.

2.

Different Hormones Means Different Behavior

The brain of male and female humans produce the same hormones but it is at different degrees. Boys for example already have as much testosterone as male adults from birth. We all produce testosterone, estrogen and oxytocin, but while boys produce more testosterone than girls, girls produce more estrogen and oxytocin.

From the moment of conception it is already determined whether the child will be male or female based on the XY or XX combination of chromosomes. The XY combination will produce testosterone and create male genitalia, while the XX combination will produce more estrogen, resulting in female genitalia.

Testosterone is a natural steroid produces mostly in the male testes and is associated with muscle strength and aggression. This is the reason why male children and adults tend to not want to sit still for long unlike their female counterparts. They also tend to be more physically impulsive and aggressive.

This is also the main reason for difference in strategies both genders use to relieve stress.

3.

Who Has  The Bigger Brain?

It has been widely believed that females have a smaller brain than males and for a long time it was dismissed as a myth. However, research has actually shown this is not a myth but a fact. While some areas of the female brain grow faster than those same areas in a male, the male brain at the end grows slightly larger to about 10 percent more than the female.

Research also shows that although women’s brains are smaller, women use their brain more efficiently, probably as a result of using more of the white matter mentioned earlier. Plus, in general, women are smaller proportioned than men.

However, there is no real significance of this when it comes to brainpower. It does not mean that boys will be better at brain activity than girls. The difference in function between both is generally attributed to the levels of testosterone and estrogen being the reason for differences in emotional reactions.

4.

What The Fetal Heart Rate Means

This used to be and probably still is one popular method for determining if a woman is carrying a girl or a boy. It has become widely accepted by a large number of people that if the fetal heart rate is fast, above 140 bpm, then the woman is carrying a girl. If the heart rate is under 140 bpm then the baby is determined to be a boy.

The truth is that fetal heartbeat for both sexes can range anywhere from 110 to 160 beats per minute in the third trimester and this is the normal heartbeat range for both boys and girls.

There have been studies conducted to learn if this is true, one in particular was published by Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy that clearly showed that there was no difference in the heart rates of fetuses once the sex was determined during the third trimester. In fact, the females’ heart rate average was actually slower.

5.

Who Hears Better?

Some parents might have wondered why their male children do not listen and the females do. It is simple because the hearing of boys is not as good as that of girls right from birth and this difference gets bigger with age. Also, the verbal centers in the brain of females develops more quickly than that of boys.

Again, it may also have something to do with the more efficient white matter of girls making more connections from outside stimuli. A male child may be more single minded and less attuned to voices.

This means that as children, a girl is more likely to respond to praise or warnings as a discipline strategy while boys respond more to actions. For example instead of talking to him, a parent may have to take him away from his current activity or get directly in front of his face to be able to receive a response.

6.

Does Belly Size Predict Gender?

There is also another popular myth that says that if the pregnant woman is carrying the baby high then she is carrying a boy, but if she is carrying it low then she is having a girl. However, this has never been given any scientific credence, and the truth about this is that the body shape and muscle structure of the woman determines a lot about how her baby will be carried.

While it is true that baby boys tend to weigh a bit more than baby girls at birth, the difference isn’t significant enough to make a difference in what the bump looks like.

In fact, the shape of a baby bump will probably change throughout the pregnancy as the baby changes position inside the uterus and depending on where the baby decides to rest, the bump may look high, or it may look low. Apart from this and the muscle structure of the woman, the number of pregnancies she has had and the tone of her uterus will also determine this.

7.

Are Boys Natural Daredevils?

Due to the difference in the production of neurochemicals in both genders, boys tend to be more inclined to take risks than girls. For them it is natural, girls on the other hand may need encouragement to be able to do same. This again may go back to the white matter and all those connections in female brains quickly calculating all the ways things could go wrong with a risky behavior. However as adults, this may not matter much in terms of business decisions.

Very few girls will prefer to suddenly jump off a wall or try a bigger slide or swim in a deep end without some form of encouragement. This is the reason for more running around to keep things in order for parents who have more boys than for parents with more female children. This is not to say that there cannot be cases where this is in the opposite. Girls like to have just as much fun as their male counterparts, so they just join in!

8.

Does Severe Morning Sickness Predict Gender?

Many claim that if a woman is suffering from severe morning sickness, then she is carrying a girl. The argument is that baby girls will produce an ‘overdose’ of female hormones, making the mother ill. When you think about it more, you should remember that the baby girl remains a girl throughout the entire 40 weeks, and not just for the first three months when morning sickness hits and then declines.

In fact, the production of female hormones rises as the pregnancy progresses.

Actually, severe morning sickness has nothing to do with the gender of a baby so it definitely does not indicate that a woman is carrying a baby girl. But it may indicate that she is carrying twins or other multiples.

Nausea has been attributed to the hormone called beta-HCG, while this hormone does not determine sex, it is produced more when a woman is carrying multiples or doubles because more babies mean more beta-HCG and more beta-HCG means elevated nausea. This myth is now debunked.

9.

Are There Different Gender Interests From Birth?

Boys are drawn more to movement or action like moving cars while girls are drawn more to people, colors and texture. From when they are babies, this difference shows itself. It is even noticeable when a girl and a boy draws. The girl is more inclined to use rainbow hues that will contain colors like red and orange to describe faces and actions.

Boys will lean towards blue, black and silver instead. As a result of this, girls can easily understand non-verbal communication faster than boys.

Studies have shown that even babies who are given strictly non-gender specific toys and guidance, boys still gravitate to toys such as cars and trains, while girls will gravitate toward dolls and faces. This can be evident even with infants. If you shake a rattle in front of an infant boy and girl, you’ll get much the same amount of attention.

However, present a face to the same pair, and you will see that the girl will be more fascinated and the boy will lose interest.

10.

Who Shows Emotions More Naturally

People, especially men, wonder why girls tend to be more into discussing things like feelings and emotions than boys. The brain again is the reason for this and not specifically to the way they are brought up. Before birth, the brain of a girl and of a boy develops with different hemispheric divisions of labor.

The female brain develops more connections and scientists believe that they think more with both hemispheres than males do. Females are known to develop communication skills earlier than males and this tends to make them more talkative and expressive, perhaps because they are rewarded earlier for the behavior.

This is why females can express themselves more verbally when discussing an incident or story since they have speech centers on both sides of their brain while boys only have it on the left hemisphere. This causes girls to have interest in talking about their emotions, places, object and every other thing that catches their eyes. When they are quiet, they are probably discussing in their mind.

11.

Boys Benefit More From Breastfeeding

Most people probably do not know this but boys actually benefit from breastfeeding more than girls. Could this be the reason why most women complain of finding it harder to wean their male children than their female children. In a study published in Pediatrics, it was found that boy infants that were breastfed at least six months did better later in school than boys that were formula fed.

Girls on the other hand who were breastfed for this same length of time did not show any significant difference whether breastfed or formula fed.

Although the reasons for the difference are not known, researchers theorize it may have to do with the immunity that mother’s milk provides during critical stages of a boy infant’s language development. It has also been shown in other studies that male infants rely more on their mothers for help in acquiring language and cognitive skills, and closeness during breastfeeding could play a role.

12.

Who's More Accident Prone?

Statistics from various emergency rooms have confirmed the widely accepted claim that boys are more prone to injuries due to physical fearlessness and their impulsive nature as a result of testosterone. While most girls underestimate their abilities and may run at the slightest sign of danger, most boys overestimate their capabilities and throw themselves into the thrill of danger.

As mentioned before, females then to think things through more than a male will and will more often come to the conclusion that a risky behavior isn’t worth injury, or the wrath of concerned parents.

Due to this, boys tend to get injured more and therefore likely to visit the emergency room for such things like bike accidents and furniture acrobatics than their female counterparts. However, their skin and bones are the same as those of girls, so if a girl is put in such a situation or does the same thing, there is a possibility that she will need to go to the ER too.

13.

Who Is Easier To Raise?Via: Static.Pexels.Com

A lot of moms have attested to this already suspected claim that girls are easier to raise than boys, at least prior to just before puberty. At the adolescent stage however, girls become harder to raise. The reason for this is the hormone testosterone that makes boys more aggressive and prone to get themselves into trouble, it can be a struggle.

There really isn’t any cut and dried decision on this and science hasn’t provided an answer. It really all depends on your own outlook.

For some women though, they claim that the boys are easier. This is as a result of females being more emotional and sometimes prone to drama. Even as babies females are more volatile and can have mood swings easily, thus creating a lot of unexpected highs and lows.

However, boys are more single minded and then concentrate on one task and one emotion at a time and generally do not have emotional swings. But keep in mind that recent studies show that males can actually be more emotional than females, they simply hide it for some reason. In studies where a boy and girl baby were slightly stressed, their facial expressions were basically the same.

Although heart rate and blood pressure showed that the male baby was more stressed than his female counterpart. The female was simply better as self comforting.

14.

Health Stats Say...

Though boys are more likely to visit the emergency room more times than their female peers as a result of their own self-inflicted injuries, what about those that are not caused by their playful and aggressive nature? Girls have a risk of five times higher than that of boys to get hemangiomas (raised red birthmarks as a result of a build-up of red blood vessels).

On the other hand, boys have a high risk of asthma, possibly as a result of their higher testosterone levels, which can relax the airway muscles. Girls are more prone to hip dysplasia, while boys are more at risk for hernias.

It is generally accepted that males are more prone to be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). This may be because boys are simply more prone to action than girls are, while girls internalize behavioral difficulties. However, there really aren’t any health risks that affect one gender more than the other.

15.   Who Runs this world

Fascinating fact: do you know that there are more boys in the world than girls? Statistics have shown that for every 100 girls that are born, 107 boys are born. This is a global figure, while for the western world alone, it is 105 boys to 100 girls. Years and years ago, it was the other way around. However, if this figure is divided from country to country, more girls might be seen in some African countries.

In any case, globally, this ratio of boy to girl evens out as they grow older. So by the age of thirty, the figure is technically one woman to one man. Males tend to die earlier than women, either soon after birth or later in life, perhaps due to their inclination to involve themselves in risky behavior. However, when they reach the age of 75, the women far outnumber the men since they have a longer life expectancy.

Sources: ABCNews.com, BabyCenter.com, Parents.com, PsychologyToday.com,