Size Does Matter, Especially to Parents of Overweight Boys

As a matter of fact, size does matter. It matters in New York City, it matters in Metro Detroit, and it especially matters to parents who worry their prepubescent sons may not measure up.

In a blog for The New York Times Monday, writer and pediatrician Dr. Perri Klass noted a correlation between worried parents’ questions about the size of their sons’ penises and soaring childhood obesity rates.

“Questions about penis size have become more common over the past decade, as my colleagues and I have all seen more overweight children coming in for physical exams,” Klass wrote.

Klass talked to 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, who said he sees “dissatisfaction with the phallus very regularly.” He said that with 10- to 11-year-old boys, “a common thing is, my son’s penis is too short.”

Dr. Ali Dabaja, a men’s health and sexual medicine specialist for Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, told WWJ Radio that concern over genitalia size isn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“When you examine these kids, it’s usually not the penile size that is of a concern. It is because they gain weight, they become a large frame, and then the discrepancy or actually the proportion, the size, becomes an illusion to the family and the child and it becomes ‘Oh my God, I have a small penis,’” Dabaja told WWJ’s Roberta Jasina.

“Some guys might have delayed puberty where they don’t develop at the same rate as their colleague and their cohort, so they have a problem with their perception at the time because they’re not at the same rate of growth,” Dabaja added.

A “hidden penis” can result from a combination of two factors — it’s buried in the fat pad in front of the pubic bone, and puberty hasn’t set it, so it hasn’t begun to grow, Klass said. In more rare situations, it could be an anatomical condition.

Surgical procedures can “unbury” the hidden penis, but Shukla advised against it. Waiting to see how the penis develops as the boy matures is a better option, along with slimming down, he said.

“I basically say, first of all I want you to know that you are absolutely and completely normal,” Shukla said. “We don’t all walk around with our pants down, and we don’t see how everybody is. But you should realize the private area can be different, and because yours looks different from your brother’s doesn’t mean there is something wrong.”

The last thing parents and their sons should do is panic.

Dabaja said some kids experience a delay in puberty, but when it does begin, “you will see growth in the genitalia size,” he said. “And if you’re still concerned go to your doctor’s office and ask them. There’s nothing wrong with following up with your doctor.”

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