Are dads to blame for unhealthy kids? New study shows obese fathers more likely to have overweight children

It's what you would expect from genetics. Everything else is a minor influence

New research has linked fathers' weights to their childrens' - finding that an obese man is more likely to have obese children.

The Australian study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, looked at the weights of eight- and nine-year-old children from two-parent families where one parent was obese.

The report found that 'having an overweight or obese father, but a healthy weight mother, significantly increased the odds of child obesity', while the reverse did not hold true.

The findings go against popularly held beliefs that mothers - who tend to spend more time with children than fathers as well as usually controlling food shopping and meals - have more influence over children's weight.

Today Mums says that scientists had before theorised that the sex of offspring was an important factor when it came to parents' sizes affecting obesity.

It was thought that obese mums were more likely to have obese daughters and obese fathers would similarly be more likely to have obese sons. The new evidence throws that into doubt.

The counter-intuitive results, yielded from 3,825 children, have surprised the University of Newcastle, NSW, scientists, who have not yet isolated the reasons for the correlation.

In an email to Today Mums, study co-author Emily Freeman, from the university's Family Action Centre, said that the results merited prompt action: 'We felt that it was very important to get the message out there straight away that dads have a big role in keeping their children healthy'.

The health scientist went on to say that a father's position as a role model may be influencing children's weights.

A dad who eats his greens and heads to the park for exercise is undoubtedly setting a good example - and one that is corroborated by anecdotal evidence when it comes to healthy children, says the scientist.

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Men over 6ft 'face a 24% lower risk of heart failure'

This is consistent with there being a general syndrome of biological fitness. High IQ people tend to be taller and healthier so we are seeing another part of that below

They are said to be more desirable to women, more successful and more likely to father children. And now scientists claim that tall men have yet another advantage – they are less at risk of heart problems.

Harvard researchers have found that those who are more than 6ft are a quarter less likely to suffer from heart failure than men just a few inches smaller.

They looked at the records of 22,000 male doctors in their mid-fifties who were subsequently followed over a 22-year period. They each filled in an initial questionnaire on their height, weight and general health and then every year subsequently filled in surveys about any new medical diagnoses.

The study, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, found that 1,444 men developed heart failure which was about 7 per cent of the total. But men who were 6ft or over (1.8 meters) were 24 per cent less likely to report having heart failure than those who were 5ft 8 or smaller (1.72 meters).

This was after their age and weight, as well as whether they had high blood pressure and diabetes, had all been taken into account.

The scientists think that one reason is that shorter men may have had childhood diseases that stunted their growth. In adulthood this could have led to the build-up of plaque in their arteries and higher blood pressure.

But they also think that the biology of taller men may put them at less risk. They say that there is greater distance between certain points in their arteries and their hearts which puts the heart under less strain.

Jeffrey Teuteberg, a cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center who was not involved in the study said: 'As much as we know about the development of very common diseases like heart failure, there’s still a lot we don’t know. “There’s still a lot more that impacts the development of those diseases beyond those things,” 'The message certainly shouldn’t be: "If you’re tall, don’t worry about these sorts of things, or if you’re short, you’re doomed."'

Heart failure affects around 900,000 people in Britain, mainly the elderly.

It occurs when their hearts are too weak to properly pump blood around the body and can be caused by heart attacks, which cause the organ to weaken.

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