Moms' full-time work tied to childhood obesity [news]
The growing number of full-time working moms in the past few decades could be one of the factors contributing to the concurrent rise in childhood obesity, new research hints. When the researchers looked at factors that could be associated with the trend, they found that mothers' full-time employment, which was more common in the younger generation, appeared to be one.
In a study of more than 8,500 UK adults followed since their birth in 1958, researchers found that the study participants' young children were 50 percent more likely to be overweight or obese than they themselves had been back in the 1960s.
One possibility, according to the researchers, is that children of full-time working moms have fewer family meals or less-healthy diets in general.