LAST WEEK I listed some qualities of a good father. In concluding, this week we’ll look at some of the benefits of fatherhood:

Health Benefits of Fatherhood

1. Children are a motivation to be healthy. All parents want to raise their children to be happy and healthy. Often, the desire to be a good role model is enough motivation to eat healthier and exercise regularly. If you’re trying to instil healthy habits in your children, you will naturally find yourself playing more with your kids and cooking more healthy meals at home. On the flip side, children can force you to create some “me time,” and the gym can provide a healthy escape from the chaos of being a dad.

2. Children demand a more active lifestyle. Children have so much energy and love to play. If your lifestyle before kids involved a lot of sitting on the couch, expect to change gears. Children have a tendency to get you up and outside, wrestling on the living room floor, and running around the park.While playtime may not seem like an intense workout, daily activity gets you up and moving, which burns calories throughout the day.

3. Children give dads a sense of purpose. The health benefits of fatherhood are not all physical. Starting a family gives men a heightened sense of purpose.

Fatherhood comes with a lot of great health benefits. Not only does it inspires men to take better care of themselves physically, but it also fills them with a sense of purpose that genuinely enhances their psychological well-being,” says Marcus Goldman, M.D., author of “The Joy of Fatherhood:The First Twelve Months.”

4. Being a good dad boosts self-esteem. Positive family relationships are proven to boost self-esteem. Men who have strong relationships with their spouse and children tend to have higher self-esteem, which can also benefit a man’s work performance and marital stability. High self-esteem is negativelycorrelated with symptoms of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.

5. Children help alleviate stress, sometimes. Children can be stressful, as all parents know. However, they also provide a release from adult stresses, like tight deadlines at work and paying your mortgage. Children bring innocence, imagination and silliness to your life, which can lighten the burden of adulthood and alleviate symptoms of stress. “Dads who have good relationships with their children are less likely to suffer from chest pain, insomnia, fatigue, indigestion and dizziness,” says psychologist Rosalind Barnett, Ph.D.

“The call of fatherhood is in fact a call of sacrifice, not in some heroic sense where a father is lifted high on some glowing pedestal with all of his sacrifices held up to the awe of those around him. Rather, it is a call that will cost him all that he has, that will be absent of accolades, where rewards will be sparse, and where he will someday find himself having spent all, but in the spending have gained everything. And this is the glory of fatherhood.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough