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Ladies, Is Your Mate Making You Fat?
NICHOLAS BAKALAR BY NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Posted Jan 14, 2010
By Nicholas Bakalar
The New York Times
It is widely known that women tend to gain weight after giving
birth, but now a large study has found evidence that even among
childless women, those who live with a mate put on more pounds than
those who live without one.
The differences, the scientists found, were stark.
After adjusting for other variables, the 10-year weight gain for
an average 140-pound woman was 20 pounds if she had a baby and a
partner, 15 if she had a partner but no baby, and only 11 pounds if
she was childless with no partner. The number of women with a baby
but no partner was too small to draw statistically significant
conclusions.
There is no reason to believe that having a partner causes
metabolic changes, so the weight gain among childless women with
partners was almost surely caused by altered behavior. Moreover,
there was a steady weight gain among all women over the 10 years of
the study.
This does not explain the still larger weight gain in women who
became pregnant. The lead author, Annette Dobson, a professor of
biostatistics at the University of Queensland in Australia,
suggested that physiological changes might be at work.
The study covered more than 6,000 Australian women over a 10-
year period ending in 2006.
At the start, the women ranged in age from 18 to 23. Each woman
periodically completed a survey with more than 300 questions about
weight and height, age, level of education, physical activity,
smoking status, alcohol consumption, medications used and a wide
range of other health and health care issues.
By the end of the study, published in the January issue of t he
American Journal of Preventive Medicine , more than half the women
had college degrees, about three-quarters had partners and half had
at least one baby. Almost all of the weight gain happened with the
first baby; subsequent births had little effect.
Also by the end of the study period, there were fewer smokers and
risky drinkers than at the beginning, more women who exercised less
and a larger proportion without paid employment.
But even after adjusting for all of these factors and more, the
differences in weight gain among women with and without babies, and
among women with and without partners, remained.
Despite the study's limitations - weight was self-reported, for
example, and the sample size diminished over time because people
dropped out - other experts found the results valuable. "It's
interesting and brings out some important points," said Maureen
Murtaugh, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University
of Utah who has published widely on weight gain in women. Perhaps,
she suggested, a more active social life may help explain why women
with partners gain more weight.
"Think of going to a restaurant," Murtaugh said. "They serve a 6-
foot man the same amount as they serve me, even though I'm 5 feet 5
inches and 60 pounds lighter."
The study included only women, but the researchers cited one
earlier study that showed an increase in obesity among men who had
fathered children, adding further evidence that social and
behavioral factors are part of the explanation.
Dobson said the finding of weight gain among all the women, with
families or without, was troubling. "This is a general health
concern," she said. "Getting married or moving in with a partner and
having a baby are events that trigger even further weight gain.
"From a prevention point of view, one can look at these as
particular times when women need to be especially careful."
woman with no partner and no child woman with partner and no
child woman with partner and child
Date: Jan 6, 2010
© 2010 The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, Norfolk, VA. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
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