Twins Will Be Separated by 1 Year In School

Madeline Holler — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:02:00 GMT

All this talk about redshirting your kid, I'm just glad I don't have to make those choices. (Shout out to kids born in the spring!)

The interesting thing is that in many states in the U.S. parents actually have a choice to push ahead or wait. In the U.K., it appears that the rules are hard and fast. Born Sept. 1 or later, you wait until next year to start. Born Aug. 31 or earlier, pack your books, you're headed to school. Which has presented an interesting dilemma for these twins, Lexus and Amber Conway, who were born right around midnight -- Lexus officially showed up on Aug. 31st, Amber, a few minutes after midnight on Sept. 1st.

Their parents are outraged that the two might actually be required to start school a year apart even though they were born but minutes apart.

I have a hard time believing the powers that be in education won't make an exception. But! Let me stir the pot and say wouldn't it be cool if they didn't? We could see, once and for all (fine, based on one case, but whatever ...) whether waiting a year has the advantages some say it does.

Of course, if an exception is not made, the girls' parents say they'll move to Spain where the rules aren't so stringent. They are very opposed to separating the girls. Anybody out there ever separate their twins by a year in school?

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Photo: DailyMail

Girls to Blame for Male Anorexia

Madeline Holler — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:08:00 GMT

I know it is ignorant of me, but I’m always surprised when I hear about guys suffering from anorexia. When I first heard about anorexia sometime as a pre-teen, it was pitched to me as a girl disease. So I filed it under “girl probs” and, I suppose, kept forgetting to go in and revise.

But according to this study, anorexia really IS pretty much a girl problem, just one that afflicts a small but significant percentage of males. Anorexia is 10 times more common in girls than guys. While health experts don’t know why there is this gender divide, studies on twins indicate there is likely something girly going on.

Health records of Swedish twins from the years 1935-1958 showed that females were more likely than males to develop the disease, except in one case: when the male’s twin was a girl.

First, another thing for the file: anorexia is NOT a modern disease, even though I somehow thought it started with Karen Carpenter and picked up the pace around the time of my first subscription to Seventeen magazine. Second, bummer, because I didn’t want femaleness to have to take the fall for this.

The researchers say:
"A plausible explanation for this phenomenon is that in pregnancies bearing a female fetus, a substance is produced, probably hormonal, that increases the risk of having anorexia nervosa in adulthood," the authors write. "Because the male half of an opposite-sex twin pair would also be exposed to this substance, it could account for the observed elevated risk in males with female twins. The most likely candidates are sex steroid hormones."

I suppose the good news out of this is that, as many have suspected for a while, anorexia has quite a bit to do with chemicals. I've always had some reservations about claiming, wholesale, that fashion mags are mainly at fault. (Though, from experience, I'll grant the magazines are intimately involved in female self-loathing.)

Any guys out there have experience with anorexia? May I ask, do you have a twin sister?

Strollerderby : twin studies

Twins Will Be Separated by 1 Year In School

Babble Talk: Are Boys Held Back From Kindergarten More Often Than Girls?

One, Two, Three, Four: Birth Order

Old French Lady Gives Birth to Triplets

Girls to Blame for Male Anorexia