Women need fewer calories but more nutrients than men to be at their best. See how women's needs differ in part 1 of our two-part series.
According to the old nursery rhyme, little boys and little girls are made of very different things. While you can fault the rhyme for not being factually accurate, it does highlight an interesting point. In some respects, men and women have different nutritional needs, largely due to differences in male and female hormones.
But we don't start out all that differently, nutritionally speaking.
"If you look at the current federal dietary guidelines for kids, there is no difference in nutritional needs for males and females until age 9," says Elaine Turner, PhD, RD, associate professor in the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Once we hit puberty, however, she added, everything changes. And women's unique role as the bearers of children tends to drive their special nutritional needs.
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