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How to vanquish the dreaded 'Dad Bod'
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It's not just women who retain weight after childbirth; fathers can develop a "Dad Bod" that can set them up for heart disease and other conditions. One thing dads can do to prevent it can also help their children's health. - photo by Jennifer Graham
It's not just women who retain weight after childbirth. Fathers, too, can put on pounds, particularly around the stomach and abdomen, and the "Dad Bod" physique can portend all sorts of health woes, including heart disease and diabetes.

Virginia physician Ryan Smith, writing in The Crozet Gazette, said the term "Dad Bod" emerged in 2015 after a Clemson University blogger described it as "the balance between a beer gut and working out."

"This marked just the latest trend for the male physique and was intended to characterize a 'softly round' appearance," Smith wrote.

Think Winnie the Pooh, if he took up running.

But adorable as the Dad Bod might be, it's a dangerous health trend, Smith warns. He cited the results of a 2015 Northwestern University study that analyzed the bodies of more than 10,000 men before and after they became dads.

"They found that fatherhood changed the health behaviors of men, which were generally not for the better, and in turn BMI rose," Smith wrote.

BMI, or body mass index, is a height-to-weight measure of body fat; higher BMIs have been linked to a greater risk of early death as well as non-fatal conditions.

"As BMI (and waist circumference) rises, so do the risks of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, low testosterone, erectile dysfunction, arthritis, cancer, sleep apnea and reproductive problems, to name a few. Extra fat in the waist area is actually a greater risk for heart disease than fat in other parts of the body such as the hips," Smith wrote.

If you worry that you (or someone you love) might have a Dad Bod, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer an online calculator to help determine your BMI.

If yours is between 25 and 30, you qualify, and you have lots of company: some 27.8 million American men, which is 37 percent of men between the ages of 20 and 54, according to The Washington Post.

To fix the problem, get moving, Smith says, calling exercise "the greatest anti-aging intervention on the planet." He concurs with the CDC, which recommends activities such as brisk walking, jogging, swimming, jumping rope and playing with children.

In doing so, you can not only vanquish the Dad Bod, but also help keep your children fit and healthy.

Canadian physician and author Dr. Yoni Freedhoff says if parents want their children to play outside, they should play with them.

"Kids are consumers of time just like adults. They'll choose to spend their free time with them doing whatever they find the most fun. When we were kids that was invariably heading outside to play. Not so much now," Freedhoff wrote on his blog "Weighty Matters."

"But for young kids at least, there is still one thing that trumps all others in terms of what kids will choose to do with their time, and that is to spend it with you."

Freedhoff gives suggestions of how parents can exercise with their children. Among them: hike, bike, shoot basketball, train together for a road race or triathlon, start a vegetable garden, build a tree house, or just jump through puddles. "There is no shortage of activities your kids will love to do with you," he said, adding, "Remember that every day that goes by, your influence on your children diminishes. Take advantage of the time you've got and teach them that a normal family life is an active one."

By the way, this works for Mom Bods, too.
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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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