According to the US National Center for Health Statistics, around 60 million people in the United States are clinically obese. A new study has shown that excess fat will lower the chances of having baby. If both the parents are clinically obese, their chances of conceiving get delayed. There seems to be a direct link between excess fat and the levels of fertility hormones in our body.

“The heavier the population gets, the more problems we would see with infertility,” says Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen, an epidemiologist at Aarhus University in Denmark.

In men, excess weight reduces the semen quality and also lowers the fertility hormones. The fragmentation of DNA in their sperm increases. As the Body Mass Index rises, the DNA fragmentation rates also grow resulting in a reduction of sperm quality and increase in the chances of miscarriages. This is true in the case of young, old and middle aged men.

 In women, it tampers with the process of ovulation and conception. In women, a high BMI gives a greater risk of polycystic ovary syndrome and insulin resistance, which results in poor IVF outcomes. Studies have also found that obesity in women influences the outcome of ovarian cancer negatively. Excess body weight causes the ovarian cancer cells to proliferate more aggressively.