Study Finds Working Mothers Spend Less Time Daily On Their Children's Diet, Exercise

So what?

When it comes to cooking, grocery shopping and playing with children, American moms with full-time jobs spend roughly three-and-half fewer hours per day on these and other chores related to their children's diet and exercise compared to stay-at-home and unemployed mothers, reports a new paper by a Cornell University health economist.

Male partners do little to make up the deficit: Employed fathers devote just 13 minutes daily to such activities and non-working fathers contribute 41 minutes, finds the study, which will be printed in the December issue of Economics and Human Biology and is posted online*.

The findings are consistent across socio-economic lines measured by the mothers' education, family income, race and ethnicity.

To make up for this time deficit, working mothers are significantly more likely to spend time purchasing prepared foods - takeout from restaurants or prepackaged, ready-to-eat meals from grocery stores - which are generally less nutritious than home-cooked meals.

"It's inaccurate to pin rising childhood obesity rates on women, given that husbands pick up so little of the slack," cautioned lead author John Cawley, professor of policy analysis and management and of economics at Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

The study does not prove that employment alone drives the way mothers spends their time. "For example, mothers who choose to work might be those who enjoy cooking less and who would cook less whether working or not," Cawley said.

Right. The study proves nothing.

All it does is give a platform for a political posture, not a scientific one.