Could Being A Dad Make You Fat?

Becoming a parent is a daunting business.

With the combination of sleepless nights, an exhausted (and probably irritable) partner to look after and a newborn to contend with, it’s no wonder that the majority of new dads gain a little weight. Around 4lbs to be exact.

In a study that spanned 20 years, researchers tracked 10,000 men through their teens and up until their early thirties to monitor their health and weight gain. They noticed that the men who became dads were much more likely to pile on the pounds after the birth of their first child – even men that don’t live with their children.  

“You have new responsibilities when you have your kids and may not have time to take care of yourself the way you once did in terms of exercise,” says the study’s lead author, Dr Craig Garfield from the Northwestern University in Chicago. “Your family becomes the priority.”

As all parents know, eating habits also change when you have kids. Suddenly you find yourself finishing your child’s leftovers after each meal and eating sweet treats when they do. But putting on weight isn’t healthy, warns Dr Garfield.

“The most weight the fathers gain and the higher their body mass index, the greater risk they have for developing heart disease as well as diabetes and cancer,” he says.

The men that became dads saw an average 2.6 per cent rise in their BMI by the end of the study, which the researchers noted is the equivalent of putting on 4.4lb. Whereas the men who didn’t have children lost a small amount of weight over the 20 years.

Dr Garfield suggests that dads should be counseled on the importance of eating healthily and exercising by their child’s doctor. “New dads are coming into the health care system as paediatric chaperones,” he says. “This is an opportunity to talk about things that are important for dads’ health and the child’s health and to offer dads nutritional counseling and mental health education.

“We now realise the transition to fatherhood is an important developmental life stage of men’s health. It’s a magical moment where so many things chance in a man’s life. Now the medical field needs to think about how we can help these men of child-rearing age, who often don’t come to the doctor’s office for themselves.”

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