Sweating behavior in puberty
Excessive sweating ruins the moment for you in situations where it is important to score points, appear confident and cheerful. Puberty is the first time most teenagers are negatively confronted with the issues of "sweat and sweating". Even without sweat problems, puberty is a challenging time in which adolescents already have to face many new things. They explore strange worlds, make first partnerships and experience many exciting and beautiful moments. But puberty also has its unpleasant sides: The crazy hormones.
Girls and boys want to look attractive and well-groomed, because no one wants to attract negative attention with blemished skin, excessive sweating, sweat stains or sweat odor. But this hormonal process is unavoidable in most teenagers. During puberty, hormones go crazy, with the result that some teenagers sweat more and smell more severe than others. The smell of sweat in girls and boys differs. The body odor of girls is perceived as sour, while in boys it is perceived as pungent and acrid. Every person is individual, and the same applies to sweating behavior. While some teenagers have little to no trouble with sweat stains and sweat odors, others suffer from bad and unpleasant sweating. Sweating a lot during puberty is normal. The reason for this is that the sweat glands mature and begin to function fully at this stage of life.
Humans sweat when sweat is secreted from the special sweat glands in the skin. Humans have several million sweat glands distributed over the entire surface of the body. A distinction is made between two different types of sweat glands, eccrine and apocrine sweat glands.
Eccrine sweat glands
They are responsible for cooling the body. However, due to hormonal changes during puberty, these eccrine sweat glands react particularly sensitively and cool the body even though cooling is not necessary.
Apocrine sweat glands
They are responsible for body odor in women and men. They are also referred to as scent glands, which in interaction with our sweat form our typical body odor. The apocrine sweat glands take on their full function at sexual maturity, the consequence of which is that the freshly formed sweat is perceived as unpleasant in adolescents.