Texarkana Gazette

Just say no to ‘Dad Bod’

- By Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D.

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 percent of men 20 to 39 are obese, and many more are overweight. Twenty-six percent of guys 18 to 44 get no physical activity at all, while most fall short of what’s recommend. Not good for guys or 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.

So don’t let your shape mudslide, or your future kids may end up health woes they were born with!

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