Today, more and more fathers are opting to stay at home while their partners are going back to work. We have all seen the memes, jokes, and beyond that chronicle a somewhat of a “kids gone wild” atmosphere when mom heads out the door with dad at the helm of it all. From morning til night, Dad is responsible for making sure that everything runs smoothly and like clockwork but does he make the grade when it comes to making healthy meals for the children?
The journal Science Direct publishes a small study that suggests that making healthy balanced meals for the kids to eat is one area that dad definitely needs improvement.
Researchers interviewed 40 San Francisco families, who were middle-upper class, and found that nearly all of the dads’ eating habits were less healthy than mom. Additionally, the study found that the fathers did less housework and child care.
“Many dads are less invested in some of the healthy-eating priorities that moms really hold dear. [this] can lead to moms doing more work, thus adding to their stress levels,” study author Priya Fielding-Singh, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Stanford University in California said in an interview with Live Science.
The study goes on to say that many dads are less invested in healthy-eating priorities that mothers tend to hold dear, suggesting that it also could be a reflection of societally entrenched gender roles.
“Feeding families is very central to motherhood,” Fielding-Singh stated in her interview. “We hold mothers accountable for the foods that families eat. [The dads] simply didn’t see it as their responsibility to be making sure that kids were eating healthy — they saw it as Mom’s responsibility.”
What do you think? Do you ageee or disagree with this most recent study? We want to hear from you!
