First-time fathers' gains
MEN face the prospect of gaining weight soon after they become fathers. That is the main finding of a study published last year in the American Journal of Men’s Health, titled “Longitudinal Study of Body Mass Index in Young Males and the Transition to Fatherhood.”
The study, conducted by researchers at Northwestern University, is recognized as one of the first largescale studies to have delved into the influence that fatherhood has on body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat using weight and height through which it can be determined if a person has a normal weight, is overweight, or has obesity.
A total of 10,253 men participated in the study. In a span of 20 years, their respective BMI was measured at four time points — early adolescence, later adolescence, mid-20s and early 30s. They were divided into three groups – non- father, resident father (a man who lived with his child) and non- resident father (a man who did not live with his child). The researchers took the average of the BMI measurements recorded at each time point to uncover the relationship between fatherhood and BMI.
The researchers found that the weight of a typical six-feet tall man living with his child increased by an average of 4.4 pounds (roughly two kilos) after he became a dad, representing a 2.6% rise in BMI. Meanwhile, the weight of a typical man with the same height but did not live with his child increased by approximately 3.3 pounds ( 1.5 kilos), representing a 2% rise in BMI. An opposite occurrence was observed among participants who were not dads: they lost 1.4 pounds (0.6 kilo).
Factors that might contribute to weight gain were controlled for. These included age, race, education, income, daily activity, screen time and marriage status. The latter has already been established to have an effect on weight gain in men. One study published in 2012, for instance, found that men who married in their 20s gained around 30 pounds ( 14 kilograms) in the first five years of marriage.
“Fatherhood can affect the health of young men, above the already known effect of marriage,” said Dr. Craig Garfield, lead author of the study and associate professor of pediatrics and medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Weight gain, which can be attributed to changes in lifestyle and eating habits, has serious implications, Dr. Craig noted. “The more weight the fathers gain and the higher their BMI, the greater risk they have for developing heart disease as well as diabetes and cancer.”
New dads mistakenly believe that they are too young and healthy to require a physician. In this regard, pediatricians of their kids can help, since, Dr. Garfield said, first-time fathers enter the health care system as “pediatric chaperone.” “This is an opportunity to talk about things that are important for dad's health and the child's health and to offer dads nutritional counseling and mental health education,” he added.
“We now realize the transition to fatherhood is an important developmental life stage for men's health,” Dr. Garfield said. “It's a magical moment where so many things change in a man's life. Now the medical field needs to think about how can we help these men of child- rearing age who often don't come to the doctor's office for themselves.” — Francis