HappyLifestyleJournal
Married couples usually center their activities together over a nice meal. After a busy day at work, there is nothing more relaxing than dining with your loved one and talking about how you spent your day.
A study published in Obesity in 2012 found that married couples who are together for two or more years are much more prone to gaining weight than single people. According to the study, women who marry in their twenties gain around 24 pounds in the course of the first 5 years of marriage, while men gain around 30.
On the other hand, unwedded couples who have lived together for just as long commonly don’t go through such problems. But why does this happen?
1. Partners are inclined to do things together.
In most cases this isn’t a bad thing, but when it comes to eating what usually happens is that a spouse who doesn’t crave certain foods ends up eating them just because their other half had a burning desire for it. If the wife is eating cake, the husband will probably join her, and vice versa.
Obesity also claims that as couples become comfortable around each other, they start spending more time eating in front of the TV, which increases the amount of food eaten (which is usually some tasty, unhealthy food), and not paying attention to the time of eating.
This definitely is one of the ways to gain weight, don’t you think?
2. In a loving marriage, a wife wants to please her man.
They say love comes in through the stomach. Many women, when they get married, start baking and making all sorts of delicious meals, sweet treats and other fattening foods that are really tasty, but pile up fat around the waist. Many people don’t even realize how much weight have they gained until they step on the scale. Until then, they enjoy the taste of amazing meals cooked and served by their beloved partner.
3. In a loveless marriage, people eat out of frustration.
Many people, especially women, eat when they are depressed, nervous, sad… When they start thinking that their partner has lost interest, instead of trying harder to get in shape or discussing what could be wrong, they start drowning their sorrow in food.
So they start gaining weight and become less attractive to their man, who will in turn become less attracted to them and create a never-ending cycle of frustration and eating. Of course, the cycle can be ended if one of the partners decides to sit down and discuss the problem, or if the couple decides to end it.
4. Pregnancy happens.
You are probably familiar with the cravings that occur during pregnancy. Most women don’t have the will to resist them, so they gain a lot of weight, which they have a lot of trouble dealing with after giving birth. Men too sometimes gain weight when their wife is pregnant, as when they see her eating those delicious foods and enjoying them so much, they give in to temptation as well.
5. Wasting food is a waste!
Family people (i.e. married people with or without children) don’t like throwing food away. Women usually tend to eat leftovers from their husband or children so that food wouldn’t be wasted. This usually leads to overeating, and consequently – weight gain.
6. Certainty and comfort make you fat!
When they sign the paper, spouses (at least subconsciously) start thinking that the marriage is for life and that they can stop stressing about ever losing that person. That leads to gradually becoming lazier when it comes to tidying up, seduction and many other things. That also makes people care less about how much they eat – so what if they gain some weight, they are married, and their husband/wife has to love them no matter what. That is not always the case, though.
Gaining weight in marriage can create numerous problems. First, it leads to the loss of confidence of the person who no longer looks as good as he/she used to. Besides that, it is bound to lead to frustration, worse sex life, and many other complications.
Luckily, most couples come to their senses sooner or later, so they start changing their habits and losing weight, and the best option is when they lose it together – it doesn’t have to be food that connects them, it can be a healthy lifestyle.
