Fatherhood May Make Men Fat: The 'Dad Bod' is a Reality

It turns out that fatherhood may be making men fat. Scientists have found that men gain weight after they become fathers for the first time whether or not they live with their children.

"Fatherhood can affect the health of young men, above the already known effect of marriage," said Craig Garfield, one of the researchers, in a news release. "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."

In this latest study, the researchers examined 10,253 participants. The volunteers had their BMI measured at four different time points over the course of twenty years. Each participant was also classified as either a non-father, a resident father or non-resident father. Then, the researchers took the average of all the measurements to determine whether fatherhood status was associated with BMI.

So what did they find? A typical 6-foot-tall man who lived with his child gained an average of about 4.4 pounds after becoming a first-time dad. Dads who didn't live with their children gained an average of 3.3 pounds. In contrast, men who weren't fathers actually lost 1.4 pounds over the same time period.

"New dads are coming into the health care system as a pediatric chaperone," said Garfield. "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."

The findings reveal a bit more about how having children can affect a man's health. This is especially important to note as the obesity epidemic continues in the United States.

The findings are published in the American Journal of Men's Health.

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