It sounds like an old wives' tale: If you eat breakfast cereal while trying to get pregnant, you'll have a boy. And yet, that's exactly what a study published last year by British researchers said. Now, a group of Americans has published a new study that says that first study is a load of Crispix. 
After re-examining the data, the U.S. group -- based in North Carolina -- contends there is no cause and effect relationship between what a woman eats and what gender her baby is. The British study had found that 59 percent of pregnant women who ate breakfast cereal daily delivered boys, while only 43 percent (still a substantial percentage) of those who rarely ate cereal had boys. It also suggested that moms-to-be who consumed more calories were more likely to have boys, too. Both reports were published in a journal called the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which sounds like it should be the name of the latest thriller from "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown.
To me, all of this should be filed under "duh." The idea that eating cereal is all it takes to determine whether we have sons or daughters sounds ridiculous on its face. And the statistics weren't definitive enough, as the American researchers suggested, to prove anything. I chalk this up to human nature. Naturally, we all want to think we can control that whole boy/girl thing. Any scientist who finally stumbled on the key to that mystery would understandably be excited. Perhaps so excited that they would published a pretty thinly supported study.
Image: Inmagine.com
For the record, the Brits still stand by their results, particularly the more general causal relationship between maternal diet and infant gender. Of course, we all know how important it is to eat well when you're expecting. Whether you want to take that a step further and start chowing down on Special K so you can finally name a child Aidan? Well, that's up to you.
