Anyone who has followed the Duggar family for a while, especially if they watched their reality TV show, 19 Kids and Counting, knows that the Duggars' youngest kiddo, Josie Duggar, had a different start in the world than her siblings. Josie was born premature — at only 25 weeks — and she had some health complications as a result.
The Duggar kids recently got together and shared some images and details of their reunion.
On April 4, several of the older Duggar kids reunited and shared some photos of their fun gathering on social media.
It was one of the first times we’ve seen some of the family members all together — namely Jill Duggar, who has had a public falling out with her parents, and Jinger Duggar, who recently released a book critiquing how she was raised.
In one photo, posted by Jinger, the nine Duggar sisters posed together in one photo — including Josie.
“We had the best time in Arkansas visiting my family,” Jinger’s caption read. “Girl time with all of my sisters and sweet mama, meeting some new nieces and nephews, eating lots of good food, and many late night conversations.”
All nine of the Duggar daughters were in the photo together: Jana, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joy, Johannah, Jennifer, Jordyn, and Josie.
Everyone looked happy with smiles on all their faces — but critics zeroed in on Josie.
Josie, being the youngest Duggar, was on the right side, standing next to her older sister, Jordyn. And according to critics, seeing Josie and Jordyn standing next to each other showed a “concerning” issue.
A critic took to the popular Reddit community DuggarSnark, to point out what they noticed, sparking a 630-plus comment discussion thread.
Posting the photo of the Duggar daughters together, one Redditor wondered why Josie was so much shorter than everyone else.
“Crazy how much shorter Josie is in comparison to Jordyn,” the thread reads. “Possibly because she was a preemie?”
Jordyn and Josie are less than a year apart in age because Josie was born premature. Jordyn’s birthday is December 18, 2008, and Josie’s is December 10, 2009.
Critics were questioning if the height difference between the two points to a health issue.
“I think she probably has a plethora of health issues that have never been addressed,” one Redditor wrote.
“I’m 90% sure it’s because of how premature she was,” another person commented.
Others expressed that if Josie did have ongoing health issues, it wouldn’t be likely the Duggars would address them.
“I mean after hearing michelle talk to casually about her little glitches’ or whatever she called them, yeah,” someone else wrote. “I wouldnt be surprised if Josie wasnt as healthy as they all claim.”
Others felt the size difference was just genetics.
“Jordyn could be a taller sister like Jill or Jess,” another person suggested. “Josie could be shorter like Jana. To top it off, Jordyn could have had her puberty growth spurt. Who know genetics genetics is odd.”
“Ehhh it’s a toss up,” someone else replied. “Prematurity doesn’t automatically make you smaller. The bigger indicator is probably whether she was Failure to Thrive which can definitely have a lasting impact on growth.”
This isn’t the first time that people have been worried for Josie’s health.
Earlier this year, people expressed concern that Josie could be dealing with a health issue after she was spotted wearing a medical device. The same Reddit thread discussed Josie’s potential medical device, suggesting it might point to a spine issue.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
