Dads do it — kids benefit

When Matt Damon prepared to star as Gardner Lodge in the George Clooney-directed movie “Suburbicon” he destroyed his Jason Borne washboard abs and showed up on set weighting 200 pounds. He said he wanted a “Dad Bod.”

Unfortunately, the Dad Bod, defined by the Urban Dictionary as more mudslide than mountain, is ever-more common. Today, over 27 per cent of men 20 to 39 are obese, and many more are overweight. Twenty-six per cent of guys 18 to 44 get no physical activity at all, while most fall short of what’s recommend. Not good for guys and not good for their future children. Research published in the journal Diabetes found that the athleticism of Dad may have an impact on the lifelong health and metabolism of his offspring. For the study, the researchers put future dad mice on either a high-fat or low-fat diet and let some of the mice from the two diet groups get regular exercise. After three weeks, they mated the future dad mice with normal mom mice. The researchers then fed the dad mice’s offspring normal diets and monitored their health for a year. The results: dad mice that exercised before becoming fathers (regardless of their diet) had changes in their sperm’s DNA that boosted their offsprings’ metabolic health, so the kids had more efficient glucose metabolism and a lower body weight and BMI.

Mice are a pretty good model for human biology! So don’t let your shape mudslide, or your future kids may end up with a roster of health woes they were born with!

“Research published in the journal Diabetes found that the athleticism of Dad may have an impact on the lifelong health and metabolism of his offspring.”

Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. To live your healthiest, tune in to “The Dr. Oz Show” or visit www.sharecare.com.