This is a funny article but as almost all the comments point out, it just doesn't fit with lived experience.

Walk around Chicago and there are a ton of dad bods with kids and a smokeshow wife.

You focus on looks because you are into looks. But women, in general, care less. You know this because, they tell you... In thought pieces, in comment sections, and when they dump you, it's never for a body builder or a movie star. It's for a dude who is cooler and nicer and doesn't write essays about how they really want to date the cover of 50 shades of gray.

All the tv shows and pop culture you point to is produced, written, and directed by men. (There are a lot of male romance writers too.)

The women's reactions are what men think about women.

It's not so much dad bods are in. It's that it represents personality traits people like, and... As a few people pointed out... When you are ripped that's 4 hrs a day you could have spent reading books or volunteering at the soup kitchen.