Dad Bods Are Desirable, Healthy, Claims Yale Professor

Caveat: You actually have to be a dad

November 2, 2016 9:00 am

Do you want to lower your chances of sickness, heart attacks, prostate cancer and even death?

Do you also want women to find you irresistible?

Scientists say the answer isn’t exercise. It’s dad bod.

In his new book How Men Age, Richard Bribiescas, a professor at Yale University, argues that being a chubby middle-aged father should be the new physical ideal. Sorry, guy in the office who gets up at 5 a.m. every day to work out.

Unbelievable though the claims may be, the numbers behind Bribiescas’s book don’t lie. As broken down by Newsweek, slightly doughy dads live longer than skinnier dads, pass on genes more effectively, have lower chances of heart attacks and prostate cancer, and — this is the big one — are more attractive to women.

But before all you bachelors cancel your gym memberships, notice that the operative word here is “dad.” Fatherhood leads to a natural decrease in testosterone and a subsequent “loss of muscle mass and increases in fat mass,” and therein lie the physical rewards. So, no, Bribiescas is not supporting the college dad bod. To reap the benefits of the taut paunch, you’ll have to pay the ultimate price: making (and subsequently raising/disciplining/paying exorbitant college tuition payments on behalf of) a person.

Unintended consequence of this research? Every “unrealistic” sitcom with a schlubby husband and supermodel wife has now been validated.

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