Women trying to conceive have long been told to eat well, and cut down on alcohol, to increase their chances of having a healthy baby; now it seems the same kind of advice could be applicable to men. A study has found that when obese men lose weight, the DNA in their sperm undergoes “epigenetic changes” that may predispose their children to be slim, rather than overweight. The researchers studied the sperm-cell DNA of obese men before and after they had gastric bypass surgery, and while they found no genetic change to their genes, they did find thousands of alterations to non-genetic structures in the sperm. Team leader Romain Barres, of the University of Copenhagen, speculates that these changes could have been caused by the weight loss – and that they could be passed on to the men’s offspring. It is just a hypothesis, but if correct, he said, the message would be that men also need to “take care of themselves before they have children – novel for them”. ( BBC News online)

The argument is that if men allow themselves to get obese it is no one else’s business. I don’t hold with that; obese people have a disproportionate number of ailments and illnesses and the condition costs health services huge amounts of money that can only come from taxing you and me. But happily, this news, if actually broadcast and re-broadcast might offer just the right message and incentive to large Dads -.”Don’t be like me; be slim and athletic, my son”.