The Case For Living In Sin
Oops. I got married before I read this article, reinforcing the old adage that people who get married gain weight. (At least men gain more than women, for a change.)
Women in their teens and early 20s who continued to date but didn’t cohabitate gained an average of 15 pounds over five years; their male counterparts added about 24 pounds. Newly married women in that age group packed on 24 pounds in five years; newly married men gained 30 pounds. That degree of gain wasn’t seen in couples who were living together but not married. Women gained 3 pounds more than their single peers — 18 pounds — and men gained 24 pounds.
“When people are dating, there may be more incentive to be thin… Single young adults tend to be the most active, watch the least amount of TV and are the least likely to be obese, says Natalie The, a researcher at the University of North Carolina. She says many factors probably contribute to couples’ weight, including having children, post-pregnancy pounds, having less time to exercise and eating out more or cooking bigger meals.
Anecdotally, my husband does the cooking around here, and we often have healthy things. Last night we had salmon and broccoli, and his staple dishes are rice and lentils, tofu stir-fry, and chard and beans. Then again, sometimes we have Indian food or order pizza or get burgers and fries. Then again, again, when I lived on my own, dinner was often wine, ice cream, and Lean Cuisine. Hmm. A longer study (of our house) is needed.
Via Obscure Store.
ETA: An excellent shredding of this article by Fillyjonk at Shapely Prose. Check it out.
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Seriously, I can’t get past the whole “packed on” in there about what women gained, even though it’s less than what men gained. Men just “gain”, women apparently “pack on.” Makes us sound like fat-camels* or something.
*Fat-camels being mythological creatures which can suck down gallons of fat in only a few minutes, not just ordinary camels who are fat. grin.
Dude, having children “may” contribute to weight gain?
Every time we go shopping I thank my lucky stars and my birth control pills that we get to buy fresh ingredients instead of prepackaged quickie food. We won’t always have time to cook. I think switching over to chicken nuggets because you have a toddler who’s sapping your energy and won’t eat anything else will easily make you gain that three pounds, if carrying the baby didn’t do it already.
Last night I had an apple, this WW Smart Ones pizza pocket thingy (it was GOOD!), hershey kisses and celery dipped in hot sauce. I don’t know about healthier…but I do eat “weirder” when I’m single. :)
I did gain weight after I met and moved in with my now husband. Part of the reason is that after I met him, my eating disordered behavior took a sharp turn for the better. In fact, the last time I ever fasted ended the day I met him.
Part of the reason is because with him, I’m a happier person. Also, it’s one thing to damage your own body, but when another person you love depends on you to, well, be there, you (or at least I) don’t engage in behaviors that may physically injure or even kill me.
And also, like Emily, my eating habits were a lot odder when I was single. Dinner was often a big bowl of spinach. My refrigerator was deliberately empty. Now, we go grocery shopping together. We cook dinners together or dine out together. I may have gained weight since we moved in together, but my diet is healthier than ever.
“When people are dating, there may be more incentive to be thin…”
So…. what? That means that every married person on the planet just doesn’t care anymore and will get as fat as they possibly can just because they’re married? What a crock.
And pregnancy “might” result in extra pounds? Not might – WILL. How MUCH depends on a persons genes, I personally think. And let’s not forget that having a baby stretches a woman in ways that shouldn’t be humanly possible, so that even when she’s lost the baby weight it doesn’t LOOK like it.
Where did I put my clue-by-four……………..?
i can see both sides to this… when i was single, i was both fat and thin and never once thought i had to ‘lose weight’ to find a guy… since dating my current boyfriend, i have noticed different eating patterns – i’m generally more healthy and he eats healthier when i’m around too… BUT he also tends to have chocolate and chips in his house, so that tempts me when i stay there… always a battle…
Thorn, you said what I was coming over to say… that whole “packed on” vs. “gained” phrasing just steams me. It’s the same way I feel whenever I read the phrase “tipped the scales.” Grrrr!
And it’s also ridiculous because, as the article says, they’re mainly talking about “Women in their teens and early 20s” and well duh, of course 18 yr olds gain weight over 5 yrs!
Re: the ETA, I wrote it. Jeez, people, we put in byline pictures to stop this! :)
ETA: An excellent shredding of this article by Kate Harding. Check it out.
It’s actually by Fillyjonk, but thanks for the link!
I can’t deny that it’s pretty flattering when people mistake my work for Kate’s.
I fixed it, Fillyjonk! You wear a tiara of awesomeness in your own right.
I can’t deny that it’s pretty flattering when people mistake my work for Kate’s.
Suck up.
“When people are dating, there may be more incentive to be thin”
Right, of course, because nobody is ever ealthy for THEMSELVES, they only workout and stay fit to try and snag a date.
I think it’s pretty interesting that they compared not just single people vs. married people, but also cohabitating couples vs. married couples. Married men and married women both gained 6 more pounds than their cohabitating counterparts. Cohabitating women gained 3 more pounds than the single women, but the cohabitating men and single men didn’t differ. The fact that cohabitators were more like single people than married people suggests that more is going on here than just the changes in eating patterns that come with living together.
I too wonder why the difference between cohabitees and marrieds?
My husband does a lot of our cooking, and although he cooks healthily, he has a lot of difficulty not serving me as much as he serves himself. (He knows this, and we’re watching it!)
Neither of us has experienced the weight-gain thing, but we’ve only been married 18 months. I will say that I never baked before we were married (we got a mixer as a wedding present), but then we lived in a house where snack food was more readily available, so I think it cancels out.
Hmm. I gained weight while cohabitating, and have lost 11 pounds (maybe more, as my pants are looser today) since becoming an “honest woman.” (What a terrible expression. Also, I lie just as much now as I did when living in sin, so it is inaccurate as well.) I probably will never weigh what I did when I was single, but that is because it is harder for me to engage in self-destructive, unhealthy, eating (or, rather, non-eating) disordered behavior when I am sitting across the table from someone who would notice if I pushed food around my plate. Also, I want to be strong, healthy, and energetic (which I was not when I was underweight) so I can do fun things with my partner for many years to come.
Jodi, when you reach goal weight — or before, for that matter — be sure to stabilize it so you won’t regain.
Well, it was 22 years ago, but I have a clear recollection that I spent the six weeks before my wedding starving myself down to fit into the damned dress my mom insisted on me wearing.
I’d been staying with my folks leading up to the wedding, and putting up with the fat abuse every day, so once Spouse and I were on our own, I probably did pig out some.
(Here’s another memory–my mom taking the cake plate away from me after I’d had the one token bite. Because “You didn’t need to stuff your face with cake, Porketta”. On my wedding day.)
No wonder I gained some weight right after I got married, huh?
whyme, ouch. That’s awful. I hope you have a lot of happy memories of that day to counterbalance the cake incident (and the abuse leading up to it).
spiderbite–
Well, the bartender mooned my grandma at the reception–that was pretty funny. Gran loved it. And my mom’s best friend did a table dance. ;)
Dishes!!!