When height was taken into account, the study found the average 6-foot dad who lives with his child gains 4.4 pounds compared to a 3.3 pound increase for a dad who doesn’t live with his child.
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Garfield also goes on to say, “Now, we were not able in this study to determine the cause of the increase in BMI [body mass index] or weight”. On the other side, a similar 6-foot-tall man who has no kids lost about 1.4 pounds in the same timeframe.
It turns out that the “dadbod” is real as scientists find that new fathers can gain their own “baby weight”.
For the study, the scientists tracked the health of adoloscents over a 20 year period.
As all parents know, eating habits also change when you have kids. Even fathers who didn’t live with their children gained approximately 3.3. pounds. The researchers did not speculate as to why these men lost weight, but it’s fair to assume that not having children allots men more free time to exercise and likely limits the amount of tempting food available to them.
A new study solved the mystery of the dadbod by proving becoming a father does, in fact, lead to weight gain. The men had their BMI measured at four different times during the study: early adolescence, later adolescence, mid-20s and early 30s.
So why are men gaining weight while chasing after little ones?
While all the participants had an increase in their BMIs over time because of age, the additional gain in their weight was observed to be contingent on their status as fathers, according to the study. Each man was also classified as either a father, a non-resident father (a dad who didn’t live with their child) or a non-father. “Anecdotal evidence does exist of fathers cleaning their children’s dinner plates”, the researchers wrote in the July 21 issue of the American Journal of Men’s Health.
One of the reasons behind this is the perception among first-time fathers that they are too young to seek help from doctors and their health is absolutely fine.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, who is not part of the research, but who is the medical director at the University of California, San Diego’s Weight Management Program said that the findings were not surprising, but weight gain can make a big difference to men’s health as they age. While aging BMI is generally changing, the way this 10,253 men changed, depended on whether they were dads or not.
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Lisa Cimperman, a clinical dietitian at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, said that the study might reveal how men’s responsibilities have shifted at home if they are taking on more child rearing duties with their partners.
