Is The “Dad Bod” Real?
There’s always a funny term that seems to be coined for describing people as they get older. We have the term “cougar” for an attractive older woman, etc, but the newest descriptive, seems to be the most accurate. The Dad Bod. No offense to the ladies.
What exactly is a Dad bod? A Dad bod is the physique of a man who was presumably in some relative form of fitness at one time, but then went on to have kids and then subsequently, the physique disappeared as quickly as his diaper money did.
Is the Dad bod an actuality, or a joke? According to researchers conducting several large scale studies concluding last June, it is very real. Scientists from Northwestern University, for example, have demonstrated that over the course of 20 years, on 10,000 men through an analysis of their BMI, after factoring in variables in race, age, and income, that it truly is a real thing, albeit with a really funny name.
Fathers that live with their children showed an increased BMI of 2.6%, which for a 6 foot tall man, equates to almost 4 1/2 pounds gained per year. Dads who lived apart from their children, but were still involved in their upbringing, saw a more modest increase of a 2% BMI increase, which translates to a roughly 3lb increase in body weight per year. The BMI of men within the same age and income bracket as the aforementioned fathers, actually lost an average of 1.5% of their BMI’s , which translates to a loss of roughly a pound and a half per year.
How does a father tend to get the dreaded Dad bod that a non father of similar age and socioeconomic stature does not? Most likely it’s because of the fact that when you have younger kids, especially, your time for yourself is substantially diminished thus making exercising a much harder proposition. Another factor at play here is the food that most children eat tends to be of the junkier variety. Hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs, peanut butter, chicken strips, etc. These are all very fatty foods with minimal nutritional value. Most kids get away with this type of dietary lifestyle because they are active, unlike their fathers, who have to work, pay bill,s take care of the kids, etc, and are bound to a much greater level of responsibility than their children.
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Andy
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