A team of scientists at Northwestern University has discovered that some men tend to gain considerable weight and increase their body mass index (BMI) rating after they become fathers.
Researchers at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine examined BMI records collected from 10,253 young men during the course of a 20-year research known as the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
A majority of the participants were enrolled in the study when they were 12 years old and others were followed until they were 34 years old.
Chief researcher Dr. Craig F. Garfield and his team arranged the data into three groups—those from nonfathers, those from resident fathers (men who stay with their children) and those from nonresident fathers—and compared their findings with each one. They found that the groups of fathers experienced an increase in their BMI ratings from their adolescence up to the time they became fathers.
The results showed that on average, 6-foot-tall man who lives with his child increases his weight by around 4.4 pounds after becoming a father for the first time. The researchers only found a slight difference between resident fathers and nonresident fathers, who gained around 3.3 pounds on average.
Men who were part of the nonfather group, on the other hand, decreased in weight by as much as 1.4 pounds during the same period.
Garfield said that he was surprised about the study's results, as his previous research suggested that men who entered fatherhood were even motivated to improve their habits regarding their health.
He added that regardless of which father group the participants belonged to, they still experienced an increase in their weight. This finding shows that all dads end up gaining additional pounds as they go through the process of fatherhood.
The Northwestern researchers took into consideration the race, income, education, screen time and even marriage status of the participants in their research. These factors have been shown to influence the men's weight.
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.
The findings of the Northwestern University study are published in the American Journal of Men's Health.
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