Women With Mate Get Heavier?

It’s been known for years that women tend to pack on the pounds after giving birth. However, a new study has found evidence that even women with no children will get heavier if they are living with a mate.

After adjusting for variables, the 10-year weight gain for an average of 140-pound women was 20 pounds if she had a child and a partner, 15 pounds if she had a partner but no baby and 11 pounds if she was childless but had a partner. The number of women with a baby but no partner was too insignificant to derive statistically significant conclusions.

The study suggests that there are reasons to conclude that women who have a partner causes metabolic changes, so the weight gain among women who are childless but who have partners was almost always caused by altered behavior.

“Women’s bodies may adjust to the increased weight associated with having a baby,” Dr. Dobson said. “There may be a metabolic adjustment that goes on when women are pregnant that is hard to reverse. This would be more consistent with our findings than any other explanation.”

The study included over 6,000 Australian women over a ten-year period ending in 2006. At the onset of the study, women ranged in age from 18-23. Each individual periodically completed a survey with over 300 questions about weight, height, age and level of education as well as physical activity, smoking status, alcohol consumption, medications used and other health issues.

By the end of the study there were less risky drinkers and fewer smokers then at the beginning. Even though the study group diminished and a lot of the data was self-reported, researches found it to be quite accurate. “It’s interesting and brings out some important points,” said Maureen A. Murtaugh, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Utah who is known for her work on weight gain in women.