What a stupid misleading headline (and study). How about blaming yourself - the kid didn’t cram another Ho-Ho down your throat.
Believe me, it doesn’t take Ho-Hos, when you hit your 40s, you don’t have to eat a heck of a lot to gain weight, if you don’t exercise.
I exercise quite a bit—an hour-long run/hike/walk with my dogs in the morning, another shorter walk at night, some gardening, lifting, and swimming in the summer, plus a couple of hours of riding and caring for my horse each night (and if you don’t think that riding is exercise, let me invite you to try to survive my Thoroughbred). I am slender and very fit. But I agree it’s very difficult when you have small children.
You try to go swimming, but you can’t leave the kids unsupervised while you do laps, so your sole exercise consists of guarding them while they splash around. You want to go for a run, but this one needs to be breast-fed and that one can’t go in the stroller because it’s time for his nap, and when you get those two stashed the third one has a temperature or allergies or something. It’s ALWAYS something with little kids. It’s tough, and costly, to find someone competent and reliable to watch them if you want to leave the house and go running. You get so exhausted just from running around after them, teaching them, cleaning up after them, changing their diapers, taking them to the pediatrician, etc., that you’re often too whipped to exercise. All you can think about is, “Please, God, let me sleep.”
In addition, I’ll tell you that the hormones of pregnancy and lactation make you desperately hungry. No, the kids didn’t stuff the ho-ho in your face, but they might as well have. You will also hold onto quite a bit of fluid while lactating.
My goodness, what horribly exhausting days those were, when my children were small. I loved every minute of it, but I was truly flat on my face.