Using quantitative data from a one-time survey followed by ethnographic research in two sites in India (Koraput district in Odisha and Wardha district in Maharashtra), this paper seeks to examine the conundrum of gender differentials in adolescent nutrition. While large-scale datasets, as from the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), suggest that adolescent boys are slightly more undernourished than girls, micro-studies often contradict this finding. In this paper, we explore the possible explanatory factors for this divergence, located in household histories in specific agro-ecological settings.