I DUNNO, I THINK PROTEIN IS GOOD: Telling Hungry Teenage Boys To Eat More Vegetables:

“We know that at puberty, boys will acquire more muscle mass, and females will end up with more fat mass,” she said. “When males go through their growth spurt, which is longer than females’, their appetite is tremendous.”

These hungry fellows have big appetites, and as a group, they don’t tend to fill up on salad. So the primary dietary advice for them is probably “eat more vegetables,” and the hope is that would mean less meat. “What this recommendation really says is that teen boys should be eating more of their calories from vegetables but less from meat to better balance their nutrient intake,” Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University wrote in an email.

We know as much as we do about the dietary habits of teenage girls because there has been so much concern about obesity and also eating disorders. Many, if not most, adolescent girls are trying to lose weight whether they need to or not. Eating disorders are less common in males, but adolescent boys, on the other hand, are often preoccupied with building muscle, particularly if they are athletes in a sport like football, where size matters. “Males may want to bulk up, may want to be big,” Dr. Field said.

“We really underestimate how important weight and shape are to males,” she told me, suggesting that airbrushed images of models and sports figures in the media promise quick results. “Young men are just as influenced as young women by these images.”

Yeah, but nobody much cares about them because it doesn’t advance an appropriate political agenda.