New dad with a beer belly? Fat chance of that!
A BEER belly can slash a man’s chances of becoming a father, a study suggests.
Every extra two inches on a male’s waistline trims the odds of producing a baby by almost 10 per cent.
And a pot belly had an even worse effect. In men who were skinny, bar a spare tyre, the extra padding reduced the likelihood by nearly half.
Experts warned that fat produces a chemical that turns testosterone into the female sex hormone oestrogen.
Dr Chavarro, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said: “These results highlight that reproduction is a team sport and focusing exclusively on women may obscure an important part of the picture.”
Co-researcher Haiyang Bian added: “A man’s lifestyle and diet could have an important impact not only on a couple’s fertility but also on the health of their children.”
And fertility professor Charles Kingsland said: “Potbellied men beware.”
Doctors in the US weighed and measured almost 180 men and women before they started IVF. Every two-inch increase in a man’s middle cut his partner’s chances of having an IVF baby by nine per cent.
This means a man whose waist wobbled in at 40in was a third less likely to become a father than one with a trim, 32in tummy.
Beer bellies were particularly problematic. An additional two inches on the waist of a man of normal weight reduced his chances by 46 per cent.
The figures stood even when other information – including the man’s age, whether he smoked and the woman’s age and weight – was factored in.
Around one in seven couples has trouble conceiving and male infertility is to blame about half the time.
Prof Charles Kingsland, of Care fertility clinics, said: “A fat belly isn’t good for your health. You’re eating the wrong things at the wrong time and drinking the wrong things at the wrong time.”
He added that couples who cannot have a baby often blame a rare medical condition, but “they’ve just been eating rubbish and are overweight”.