25 August 2026, 6:59pm
Dads’ junk food diet could have ‘long-reaching effects’ on offspring – study
CheckpointRNZ’s weekday drive-time news programme from 4-6pm.
The effects of obesity caused by western junk food diets can be passed to children through their dad’s sperm, according to new research
The data from the University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute suggests what the father is eating could – in some cases – be more influential than the mother’s diet, which has long been a focus
The study looked at the impact of high-sugar, high-fat junk food diets on breeding rats and their babies as they aged
Fathers diet could be linked to obesity in children
Checkpoint
Dr Ben Albert – a paediatrician and senior research fellow at the Liggins institute – told Checkpointthe study gave a junk food diet to various mum and dad rats, and then looked at the results
“In our study we have very carefully controlled the diets of mum and dad rats and shown that when dads had this junk food diet, it had really long-reaching effects on the offspring, right through to adulthood
“We’ve found that if the dad had the junk food, even though the offspring were all treated exactly the same and ate normal diets their whole lives, they had greater body weight, greater body fat, higher blood pressure.”
The researchers found the metabolism was working abnormally in the rats that had junk food eating dads, changing the way insulin worked in their bodies and increasing their risk of diabetes and heart disease
“What it means is that if a child is born from a dad who is carrying more weight before they conceive, then that child is already born with kind of the dice already loaded against them. They’re already at increased risk of weight problems and diabetes down the line. It doesn’t mean that what they do in their life won’t be important, in fact, it might be exceptionally important because their risk is higher – but it means that everything is harder from the start,” Albert said
The research team had more questions to answer, including how many months before conception the diet would affect the sperm
But Albert said it was possible it was a relative short period of time
“Because it takes about two months for a sperm to develop from start to end. And so the hope would be that perhaps if dads could dramatically improve their health for around two months, that would actually set their babies up on a healthier path, but the study to show that hasn’t been done yet.”
He said they hoped to have more answers that could led to having clinics for men who wanted to have a baby, “so we could talk about the best thing for them to do to optimise their health in order to set their babies up on a healthier path”
25 August 2026, 6:59pm
