August 29, 2016

"As Boys Get Fatter, Parents Worry [Their Son's Penis] Is Too Small."

A NYT article.
The penis can be buried in the fat pad that sits in front of the pubic bone, and it can remain hidden as boys go through adolescence. What is called a “hidden penis” can be a combination of being prepubertal (so the penis has not begun to grow), being overweight (so the fat pad is significant), and in some cases an anatomical condition in which the soft tissue below the skin of the penis doesn’t adhere well to the Buck’s fascia, the thick covering that surrounds the penile nerves and arteries. This fixation problem can yield what [Dr. Aseem Shukla, a pediatric urologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of urology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania] described as a “slidey” penis, in which the actual shaft retreats and only the skin, or the foreskin, in an uncircumcised boy, is clearly apparent....

Dr. Shukla said that he tries to reassure preadolescents that if they lose some weight and still feel that there is a problem when they reach puberty, they can come back to address it. “I push down and I show them the length and width,” Dr. Shukla said.

40 comments:

pdug said...

That Trump painting doesn't help either.

Yancey Ward said...

Laslo going to have fun with this.

mockturtle said...

Reminds me of a joke: Fat guy goes to the doctor, complains 'my belly is so big I haven't seen my penis for years.' Doctor: 'You're going to have to diet'. Patient: 'What color?'

CStanley said...

At some point we're going to have to take seriously the possibility that all of the estrogens we're ingesting are contributing to phenomena like this as well as confused sexual identities and low fertility.

Rob said...

So now we know why Anthony Weiner has stayed slender.

rehajm said...

Son, some of us are showers and some of us are growers...

mockturtle said...

I've never seen a picture of Weiner's wiener. Is it unusually LARGE? Or is he just unnaturally obsessed with it?

tds said...

cat penises!

mesquito said...

The flabby little bastards need to be out there loading hay or something.

traditionalguy said...

The child abuse industrial complex will use this to talk more boys into gender assignment using Trump's mantra, "what have you got to lose"

Brando said...

So these parents have given up on their kids making it to adulthood without a heart condition, but their primary concern is their penises will look too small?

SukieTawdry said...

So let me get this straight, parents are worried about the size of their kid's penis, but they're not worried about the size of their kid??

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Their doctors should just tell them to self-identify as people with normal-sized penises.
Self-identification is reality.
Problem solved.

(Ooh, think of the medical cost savings--I just saved Obamacare!)

Curious George said...

Fat, drunk, and having a hidden penis is no way to go through life son.

glenn said...

You just knew the WeinerWagger was going to join the conversation somehow.

Otto said...

Young lady why is that you want to show that some part of your mind is always in the gutter?

Birches said...

One of my friend's kids was like this as an infant. She was concerned because it pretty much disappeared which would be concerning. She asked the doctor about it, he said it would be alright once he got older. He's as skinny as can be now so I'm guessing it's not an issue.

I've heard from people who work in health care that the same thing happens to morbidly obese men too. Yikes.

madAsHell said...

It never stopped Ron Jeremy!!

Unknown said...

It's about carbohydrates, not estrogen.

eric said...

We have gone from, "Havent you heard of shrinkage!"

To, "It's because I'm fat!"

mockturtle said...

Not only do we get estrogen in our foods but our bodies manufacture it from fat, which is why female marathon runners often stop having periods.

smitty said...

The Grey Lady addresses another First World problem.

Birkel said...

Somewhere a plastic surgeon is smiling. A LOT.

pdug said...

cstanley : agreed. If the trans acceptance stuff has downsides, one of them might be a lack of cultural disinterest in discovering causes or working on fixes.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

This reminds me of something I keep meaning to bring up with our pediatrician, out of curiosity as much as anything else. I have five kids, ages 4 months-15, and like everyone else I've noticed that kids are getting fatter and fatter, even in my own kids' lifetimes. It seems the average kid these days is what we would have called chubby or pudgy when I was young (80s). I've always wondered, especially in recent years, if/when pediatricians and family practice doctors are going to change the way we evaluate healthy weights for kids? Are we going to stop using percentiles? Who cares if your kid is at the 25th percentile for weight, if that's the same actual weight that would have landed him at the 75th percentile 30 years ago which would have been cause for concern? I hear mom friends all the time about their noticeably heavy and sedentary kids "well he's always been at the 40th percentile for weight so we don't worry." Um, what?

TreeJoe said...

" Are we going to stop using percentiles? Who cares if your kid is at the 25th percentile for weight, if that's the same actual weight that would have landed him at the 75th percentile 30 years ago which would have been cause for concern?"

Up to, say, 10-11 years old percentiles are still a fine way to look at weight and height within normal boundaries (i.e. up to 80-90th percentiles).

Yes, adiposity still has to be visually examined. But, similarly, so to does muscle mass. A young man who started to produce testosterone early (for example) and who is into a physically demanding role such as gymnastics may start packing up muscle far earlier than his contemporaries. His percentile will go up notably....but looking at him will show he's fit.

Similarly, and this is where I think BMI/Percentiles really fail, a young man who spends his life in front of the computer might show up as, say, overweight or borderline obese....but in reality, he has so little muscle for his age he's really much worse off than the statistics show for his age. And this is the area healthcare providers least examine closely - adequate muscle for a given age, which has some of the best correlation with long term health outcomes and wellness and quality of life.

Achilles said...

New weight loss cure for boys: fat kids have small dicks.

Sometimes you just need to let these things run their course.

tim in vermont said...

It's about carbohydrates, not estrogen.

Right, and gravity proves that planes can't fly.

tim in vermont said...

A lot of it is the portions that are served. I have recently been trying to lose 25 pounds to get back where I was in my thirties. Well I used to be big into the low carb diets, and they work, by making you crave less food and therefore eat less calories, but as I got older, they stopped working for me. I started a month ago forgetting about carbs and just counting calories, and guess what? It fucking works! Just like they say! I even eat a foot long sub from Subway for lunch most days, and often an egg mcmuffin for breakfast. Broke the plateau. I used to avoid carbs like the devil. Don't care any more.

Of course I also walk three miles a day now.

As for the penis thing? Teach the kid about nutrition. Take away his smartphone, give him a call/text only phone. Stop buying Coke and keeping it around the house! Give him a basketball, or a bicycle. Lock him out of the house for hours, like my mother did us kids. You have to teach kids stuff, they don't actually know everything like they think they do!

Freeman Hunt said...

Similarly, and this is where I think BMI/Percentiles really fail, a young man who spends his life in front of the computer might show up as, say, overweight or borderline obese....but in reality, he has so little muscle for his age he's really much worse off than the statistics show for his age.

You see the same thing in large adults. There are men who have a lot of fat over a lot of muscle and men who have a lot of fat over almost no muscles at all. Huge differences in health profiles there. Someone should develop a more informative scale that takes this into account.

HT said...

And here I am complaining that the medical profession has been asked to solve problems that are cultural, societal and economic in nature, when along comes aesthetics to maybe deal with the problem. Well thank goodness something is. Here's hoping it works, and fat boys won't wanna date fat girls, and so they will get in line soon as well.

As for fertility, is there really a problem for women ages 18-30? I didn't think so, but thought I'd ask.

DUSTER said...

There once was a man from Nantucket ......

HT said...

Growth charts, to some extent like BMI, are a blunt instrument and more useful the younger a person is, especially infants and babies. With the changing bodies we have now, it will become less useful, not to mention children are coming from a wider variety of countries. We are a lot less homogenous. Nevertheless, IMO, it's fairly good to know (again especially for the younger children). As for BMI, it's also IMO good to know, though yes, very muscular people can have high BMIs. Waist circumference and total body fat help round out the picture as well.

n.n said...

That solves the female transgender/crossover problem.

mockturtle said...

tim in vermont: I found the same thing about the Atkins-type, lo-carb diet. It worked great for me the first time but not any more. I've been trying to lose ten pounds for quite a while now. My clothes fit but tightly.

Wince said...

Male porn stars often talk dirty by saying, "you want my big, fat cock?"

I now gather a penis saying, "you want my big, fat human?" wouldn't have the same erotic effect.

Anonymous said...

Two words for all of you commenters: Vince Wilifork

Anonymous said...

I really don't want to think about other peoples' kids' penises.

tim in vermont said...

Mockturtle, fitbit, I just clocked almost 9 miles today, after just finishing nine holes walking since that last comment. But don't trust its advice on how much to eat, it can make you gain! I just know that after that many steps, I can have a Dove bar.

mockturtle said...

I just know that after that many steps, I can have a Dove bar.

LOL! Yes, when I had my exercise bike with a calorie counter, I would ride just enough to take care of my Klondike bar.