[Wild Fragaria]

I think this is a good reason why men are allow put on extra pounds 

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Nature News Published online: 1 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060130-6  by Helen Pearson

Male monkeys gain weight during their partner's pregnancy, and this finding hints at a biological basis for expectant fathers' expanding waistlines.

Men commonly mirror symptoms of pregnancy, such as weight gain, nausea and backache. But the phenomenon, sometimes called couvade syndrome, is often dismissed as psychosomatic, with no real physical explanation.

Now, primate researcher Toni Ziegler at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her colleagues have shown that two types of male monkeys experience one aspect of sympathetic pregnancy too.

They weighed 14 male common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and 11 cottontop tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) during their partners' pregnancies of five and six months, respectively. They chose these animals because the males are monogamous and take on as much or more of the childcare as the mothers - just like some human dads.

The animals gained as much as 20% of their original body weight, the team reports in Biology Letters1.

Fattening themselves in this way may help the male monkeys get through the gruelling few weeks after the baby arrives, Ziegler says, and so help ensure that their offspring survive. "We think it's preparing them," she says.

The study raises the possibility that a human father who gains weight during his partner's pregnancy might also do so partly because his body is naturally stocking up for the exhausting days and sleepless nights ahead. "A long time ago it might have been advantageous," Ziegler says.

A handful of other studies have shown that expectant fathers experience swings in hormones such as prolactin, testosterone and the stress hormone cortisol. It is possible that these hormonal changes could drive some gain in weight but there have been few studies to test this idea.

Of course, men could pad out during pregnancy simply because they are mirroring the behaviour of their burdened partners, who tend to eat and rest more.

And in food-rich Western societies that already tend heavily towards the obese, it is difficult to say whether gaining weight is an advantage for a new dad.

There are also many other reasons that a man's hormone levels could go askew during pregnancy and birth, such as changes in routine and stress, points out Katherine Wynne-Edwards who has studied hormone changes in expectant fathers at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.

"The arrival of one's mother-in-law might change the hormones of any man," she says.


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[an0n]

It's all just environmental.

If your wife gets knocked up (presumably by you) then your life os obviously going to change, and you'll become more and more tied to home - meaning less exercise and ****.

And being around a pregnant woman ****s with any man's head. Crazy *****es.

[Wild Fragaria]

I disagree with your view that it's simply environmental.  Did your little devil tell you so?   

[karajorma]

It's all just environmental.

If your wife gets knocked up (presumably by you) then your life os obviously going to change, and you'll become more and more tied to home - meaning less exercise and ****.

So marmosets stop going out drinking with the boys once they get a female pregnant?

[Ford Prefect]

We studied this principle in my cultural anthropology class. There is a universal tendency among men to somehow mimic the woman's pregnancy. There have actually been cultures that believed a man could become pregnant, and that it had nothing to do with sex.

[an0n]

There's cultures that believe the Earth is hollow. So that don't mean ****.

And people are basically monkeys anyways. Real monkeys stay closer to the female while she's pregnant, thus limiting their activity.

[Wild Fragaria]

How are people being monkeys support your view?

[aldo_14]

How are people being monkeys support your view?

Anon likes to annoy/wind up/get a response from/antagonise people; I wouldn't bet too much on there being a massively coherent or incisive background to any statement.

[an0n]

People are monkeys.

They like to think they're civilized and inherantly better than the other animals because they've created music and science and religion - but they're still just ****ty little monkeys.

And my point was that even in a 'civilized' society, people are still ruled by their pathetic animal instinct. Instincts which tell them to stay close to the pregnant female for defensive purposes. This limits their activity and causes weight gain.

[Wild Fragaria]

Anon likes to annoy/wind up/get a response from/antagonise people; I wouldn't bet too much on there being a massively coherent or incisive background to any statement.

Yeah, it didn't take me long to figure that out 

People are monkeys.

They like to think they're civilized and inherantly better than the other animals because they've created music and science and religion - but they're still just ****ty little monkeys.

And my point was that even in a 'civilized' society, people are still ruled by their pathetic animal instinct. Instincts which tell them to stay close to the pregnant female for defensive purposes. This limits their activity and causes weight gain.

Not very impressive and mildly entertaining 

[Nix]

Man, I can see this getting ugh-leeeh! 

But yeah, I heard about this on the radio early sunday morning, with the addition of the above syndrome causing the male monkeys to mimic even painful situations, such as laying on thier backs and clutching thier stomachs, howling in pain.  I was laughing so hard at the news on the radio untill I looked up Couvade Syndrome at home. Now I dont find it so difficult to believe.

[IceFire]

People are monkeys.

They like to think they're civilized and inherantly better than the other animals because they've created music and science and religion - but they're still just ****ty little monkeys.

And my point was that even in a 'civilized' society, people are still ruled by their pathetic animal instinct. Instincts which tell them to stay close to the pregnant female for defensive purposes. This limits their activity and causes weight gain.

Makes sense...its all very true in my mind.  Virtually everything we do is instinctual and instinct based.  We think we have free will and maybe we do to some extent but its governed and controlled by our animalistic instincts.  I find its better to at least be aware of them than ignore that they don't exist...

[Ford Prefect]

That's not technically true, actually. The word "instinct" is one of those scientific terms that tend to get thrown around a lot in incorrect contexts. Scientifically speaking, we only have a few actual instincts left in our wiring-- language, play, and imitation being chief examples. However, this does not in any way preclude the debate over the predictability of human nature. Just because we're not acting primarily on instinct doesn't mean that our minds are blank slates, and I would certainly be among the first to argue that human nature is a relatively inescapable pattern.

[achtung]

We're just a link in the chain of evolution which seems to be slowly breaking us away from our instincts.

[an0n]

No it isn't. They're just getting ploughed under all the pretense.

[WMCoolmon]

Or maybe they're getting mixed with new ingredients like fresh beer in the hands of a zany new foreign bartender.

[Wild Fragaria]

That's not technically true, actually. The word "instinct" is one of those scientific terms that tend to get thrown around a lot in incorrect contexts. Scientifically speaking, we only have a few actual instincts left in our wiring-- language, play, and imitation being chief examples. However, this does not in any way preclude the debate over the predictability of human nature. Just because we're not acting primarily on instinct doesn't mean that our minds are blank slates, and I would certainly be among the first to argue that human nature is a relatively inescapable pattern.

And I will be right behind you.

[aldo_14]

We're just a link in the chain of evolution which seems to be slowly breaking us away from our instincts.

More likely that instincts are helping form our cultural evolution.