Two Paths on the Road to Obesity

New study: Dads who smoke raise overweight kids.

The adverse-effects of smoking have been hammered home, time and again, spanning back to those pesky D.A.R.E. classes: lung cancer, emphysema, high blood pressure, yellow teeth, and heart disease.

Now, we can add another one to the list. As Alice Park reports in Time, if you’re a dad who smokes, your kids are more likely to be obese. In a recent study of Chinese paternal smokers and their kids, researchers discovered that the “children whose fathers smoke are heavier at 7 and 11 years old than their counterparts who have non smoking dads.”

The study’s authors posture that exposure to the secondhand smoke may alter “biological mechanisms” that result in obesity. Moms who smoke don’t get off scot-free, either; Park details a study conducted by the University of Bristol showing that “mother’s smoking increased by an average of 53% the risk that children… would be aggressive, break rules, bully, cheat or otherwise display disobedient behavior, compared to kids of non smoking moms.” In this case, smoking during the pregnancy is thought to be the root cause behind the behavioral shift.

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In other news on the obesity front, New England restaurant chain Friendly’s is garnering headlines for its new Grilled Cheese BugerMelt, which, at 1500 calories, 79 grams of fat, and 2,090 mg of sodium, blows away Wendy’s Triple Baconater and KFC’s Double Down for first place in the “heart attack on a platter” division.

The Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt—a sopping, half-pound burger wedged between two grilled cheese sandwiches—has been met with a mixed reception. Not surprisingly, nutrition experts are horrified.

“This is insane and very irresponsible,” railed American Dietetic Association spokeswoman Keri Gans. “And the amount of sodium is outrageous, exceeding by almost 600 mg. what is being recommended for the 2010 dietary guidelines.”

Ugh. I can’t decide whether to vomit or speed over to the late-nite drive-thru.

Either way, remember when fast food chains actively downplayed their traditional menu items through marketing healthy, alternative choices? Now it’s become a race to see who can come up with the cheesiest, greasiest, bacon-infused, artery-busting offering.

What caused this shift in approach? What else—it’s the economy, stupid.

—Nick Lehr