Association between Parenthood and Health Behaviour in Later Life-Results from the Population-Based CARLA Study.

Lisa Becker,Alexander Kluttig,Nadja Kartschmit,Sarah Negash,Rafael Mikolajczyk

doi:10.3390/ijerph19010082

Abstract

Previous research has focused on comparing health behaviour between parents and non-parents at younger ages, while little is known about the impact of being a parent on health behaviours in later life. We studied whether parenthood is associated with later physical activity (PA), dietary pattern, smoking status and alcohol consumption in German adults of middle and old age. We used data from the baseline examination of the population-based CARLA-study in Halle (Saale), comprising 1779 adults aged 45–83. Linear and logistic regression analyses assessed the relationship between parenthood and health behaviours while controlling for age, partner status, education, income, occupational position, socioeconomic status in childhood, and number of chronic diseases. Of the participants, 89.1% had biological children. Being a father was associated with higher PA in sports (sport index ß = 0.29, 95% confidence interval [0.14; 0.44]), but not with PA in leisure time (excluding sports), dietary pattern, consumption of alcohol and smoking status. No associations were found between being a mother with all outcome variables. Provided that PA of fathers is typically reduced when the children are young, the development towards higher PA at later age needs to be studied in more detail.

Highlights

Engaging in healthy behaviours, such as being physical activity, eating a wholesome diet and avoiding tobacco and alcohol consumption, plays a pivotal role in health
The present study investigated whether being a parent is associated with physical activity, dietary pattern and consumption of tobacco and alcohol in adults of middle and old age
Our study showed that parenthood was associated with sporting activity in later life in men, but not in women

Summary

Introduction

Engaging in healthy behaviours, such as being physical activity, eating a wholesome diet and avoiding tobacco and alcohol consumption, plays a pivotal role in health. Evidence suggests that these behaviours, especially when combined, lead to improved longevity [1,2] and to a longer life in good health [3,4]. Previous research has focused often on health behaviour among parents of young children When compared to their childless counterparts, parents spent less time in moderate to vigorous physical activity [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The authors found that parenthood (defined as living with children) was associated with adverse health

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