The Side-effects of Parenting

Guess what parents? A recent study has shown that being a parent is bad for your health! No, the study was not conducted by the Research Academy of the Obvious, it was conducted by the University of Minnesota - it's just that they proved the obvious. 838 women and 682 men from different socioeconomic and ethnic background were looked at and a correlation between being a parent and various negative health effects was found - especially for young mothers.

Young mothers it seems, have a higher body mass index than their single counterparts and their diets are higher in sugar.

Something that was found with parents across the study was a lower rate of physical activity. It should be noted though, all of the parents in the study had children that were under 5 - when you have kids this young it's much harder to do 'adult-exclusive' activities like going to the gym or even just playing football with friends.

Although these findings are expected, it doesn't mean that having young kids and letting go health-wise need to go hand in hand. The researchers see these findings as reason to initiate programs that will help young parents to deal with demands of childbearing without sacrificing health and exercise. According to the researchers, part of  the reason why we should address health issues in parents is that these bad habits might influence their children.