Examining father status and purpose to understand new dads’ healthier lives.

Abstract

We investigated the role that fatherhood status and purpose play in predicting men’s health behaviors and social support by testing 2 models of mediation. A total of 211 men participated in the study, with 50.2% of participants being fathers with children 5 years of age or younger. Participants completed measures of purpose, cardiac-related health behaviors, and social support via a 10- to 15-min anonymous online survey through Prolific. Path analysis using MPlus was used to test our hypothesized models. Results supported the full mediation model and indicated that (a) being a father related to reporting greater purpose but does not play a direct role in relation to health behaviors or social support, (b) reporting greater purpose directly related to healthier behaviors and more social support, (c) being married related to healthier behaviors and more social support, and (d) being a father had significant indirect effects, being fully mediated by purpose, in predicting men’s healthy behaviors and social support. Practices and interventions that promote purpose and health for new fathers are suggested, and related future research directions are discussed.

Satisfaction with Life, Emotions, and Identity Processes in Polish First-Time Mothers and Fathers and Their Child’s Age

“…The results of our study did not confirm the diversity of trajectory of intensity changes of positive and negative emotions being connected with the indicators of depression in women and men, which is probably because people participating in the examination did not report any symptoms of the post-natal depression. In this study, the link between satisfaction with life and intensity of emotions experienced by mothers and fathers was confirmed [18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…They indicate diversified trajectories of changes in the intensity of positive and negative emotions in women and men [ 18 ] and indicators of postpartum depression [ 14 ]. Some research points to the significance of the public support for intensifying positive and negative emotions in parents of the small child and to their connections with well-being or with satisfaction with life or satisfaction with marriage relations [ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”

Evaluation of brief online interventions to increase sense of purpose for fathers living in the United States.

“…Sample items for these three subscales include: “How well do you understand what gives your life meaning?”; “How much effort are you putting into making your goals a reality?”; and “How often do you hope that the work that you do positively influences others?” Participants respond to these questions on a 5-point Likert-type scale with anchors corresponding to the item question (e.g., 1 = not at all well , 5 = extremely well ; 1 = not at all often , 5 = extremely often ). Mahalik et al (2020) reported confirmatory factor analysis results supporting a strong fit of the factor structure (comparative fit index = .99; Tucker-Lewis index = .98; root mean square error of approximation = .053; standardized root-mean-squared residual = .035) in a sample of 211 adult men. Bronk et al (2018) reported alphas ranging from .92 to .94, as well as strong concurrent validity with other purpose and life satisfaction measures.…”

“…For example, paternal involvement supports mothers' health before and after birth (Tokhi et al, 2018), is linked with reduced maternal stress (Nomaguchi et al, 2017), and helps mitigate the effect of maternal depression on child development and family cohesion (Vakrat et al, 2018). Fathers also benefit from involvement through developing a greater sense of fulfillment (Fleming et al, 2014) and purpose in life, which in turn predicts their healthy living (Mahalik et al, 2020). Addressing father involvement, specifically, if men experience greater personal significance and meaning in their role as fathers, this should foster more forward-looking goals through actions that make a difference in the world beyond oneself (Bronk et al, 2018;Damon et al, 2003), leading to greater involvement in parenting and involvement with their children.…”

Masculinity and men's health service use across four social generations: Findings from Australia's Ten to Men study

“…The damaging implications of traditional masculine ideals on men's health and wellbeing is being highlighted in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic with calls for health messages targeting men's health behaviours ( Smith, Griffith, et al, 2020 ; White, 2020 ). However, while adherence to traditional masculine ideals is considered mostly incongruent with positive health behaviours, reimaging of some traditionally masculine traits such as being fit and muscular or a good role model or father-figure indicate a reconfigured masculinity construct may have some positive implications for men's health ( Lewington, Sebar, & Lee, 2018 ; Mahalik, Di Bianca, & Sepulveda, 2020 ; Oliffe et al, 2019 ). Some argue, however, these modern takes on traditional masculinity could still be harmful to men's wellbeing, promoting unrealistic body images, for instance ( Lewington et al, 2018 ).…”