Thank you, captain obvious...

When did shit that is completely obvious become "news"?  Today I opened up my interwebs to find this fucking brilliant headline shocking me to attention:

Parenting can take a toll on health, study shows

Oh, really?  Tell me more!!! 
 
Health declines, particularly in moms, due to poor diet and less exercise.

My kid's idea of a balanced meal:  all the colors are there!

First off, I am shocked that it took this long for any science-y person to look around and think to themselves, "Is it just me or do mom's seem to age like 15 years in the first 5 years of their children's lives?"  Part of my not really being particularly desperate to pop a baby out had to do with the simple observation that the mothers I saw around me (not including assholes like Angelina Jolie or Kelly Ripa who can pop out 12 kids in 6 months and be back on the beach in someplace like Bali in their bikinis the next month) did not look good.  They were fat.  They were tired.  They looked pale and/or greasy.  In fact, I theorized that that glorious "glow" that pregnant women had was like the big finale at the fireworks show.  They'd never have that youthful vitality again.

Kelly Ripa on her way
home from the hospital
after the birth of her 3rd
baby.

So onto the obvious details.  As soon as I had my kid, I lost all ability to function for myself.  When she was a newborn, I never ate.  I certainly never slept.  Hell, I didn't shower. The life upheaval involved in having a baby is as stressful as the death of your former self and no one looks good when they're grieving.  I had a child that I was convinced was probably the Anticrhist because her only goal seemed to me to push me to murder.  She cried non-stop for about 6 months (that's how I remember it).  And the doctors all just said, "it's colic.  She'll out- grow it".  Well you know what?  I didn't.  I never got over it. 

As she got older, she took on the attitude of "if Mommy is standing, then I need to try harder," and her entire purpose seemed to be to wear me out.  From the running around, to climbing all over me, to demanding 4 different drinks because each one was "wrong", to refusing to eat anything I put in front of her, to needing to change her clothes 6 times because of one spot of water, to never sleeping through the night until she was 3; everything she did was designed specifically to make me into a zombie.
 
Who can exercise when they can barely get out of bed?  And who the hell are these mothers who work all day and come home and find it possible to spend an hour making a nutritious (and organic and meat-free) meal that their kids will just love rather than just throwing a frozen pizza into the oven? 
Fuck those moms. 

More importantly, besides the "news" that this study reveals and common-sense advice (because don't we all KNOW what we SHOULD be doing?) to take better care of ourselves, this article DOES offer one useful suggestion.  Unfortunately, it is buried at the very end of the article and as far as I can tell has not been repeated in subsequent articles that have been posted on the web:

...Berge said she hopes that the results will push health care providers to pay additional attention to parents.

Community initiatives could also be part of a solution, she said.

“You can’t extend the hours in the day, but by working with others in the neighborhood we can make sure that the parents are taking care of themselves, too..."

Shit..If I had a village of nannies (or even just a village of Mommy friends), I am sure I would have more time to shower and exercise and eat well too. 

To me, this "study" was simply a piece of information that serves absolutely no purpose except to remind me of how unhealthy I am.  Because realistically, until my kid goes off to college or at least becomes a bit more agreeable than the pain in the ass preschooler that she is now, I will likely continue to be too emotionally and physically drained to bother with the necessary chores of meal planning, local vegetable buying and hour-long daily workouts that would be required to get me even remotely into a condition that can be considered healthy.

Because playing WII bowling with my kid while chomping on Goldfish crackers is just not going to cut it.