Shed your kids – for weight loss?

Here’s a clunker of an article by Emily Leamon at Be Well Philly, which provides us with the snippet of wisdom that having kids makes us fat. Ye Gods! So the only way to stop the dreaded obesity epidemic may be to simply stop the human race. If we can avoid having kids, maybe we can avoid packing on the pounds later in life.


The tragedy of this article isn’t that it quotes useless BMI statistics, [which is does], or this ridiculous quote:

Fathers gain more weight than mothers, on average, likely because their lifestyle choices—smoking, drinking—are impacted most. As fathers give up those habits, they turn to food, researchers suggest, which leads to more pounds over time.

slyly suggesting if those dads just kept on drinking and smoking they would stay thin, but that Ms. Leamon’s only solution to the ‘problem’ is to “try, oh try to stay in shape before you dive into parenthood.” Such sage advice! Especially when the article itself touts the magical age for childbearing to be 26 – pick a different age in either direction and you’re doomed to pork up apparently.

I could have saved the researchers a lot of time and effort and told them why parents gain more weight than childless people. The answers are simple and clear to anyone with kids. Stress! When you can spend all your time smoking, drinking and doing recreational drugs as the source article mentions prominently as being the reason why fathers especially gain more weight, and you don’t have to be responsible for the life of another human being, it’s a lot easier to stay thin. Having less time to cook and shop and less money to spend on those suspiciously more expensive “healthy foods” is also a contributing factor.

Let’s face it, kids are expensive and time consuming and they impact a person’s ability to stay focused on the all important weight of their bodies. The takeaway from both of these articles is – if you want to stay thin, forget kids, stick to the smoking and drinking and substance abuse ‘cause lord knows it won’t help you after you have them.