Baby's Obesity Risk: What's Mom's Influence?

Aspiring moms may be advised to achieve a healthy weight before they become pregnant, and to gain only the recommended amount of weight during their pregnancy.

In fact, the child's body-weight-regulating mechanisms might be permanently altered by maternal signals associated with the mother's own overweight, according to Shankar. Such maternal programming of the unborn child could increase the risk that the child would become an overweight or obese adult and would have a higher risk of obesity-related afflictions.

Shankar looked at weight gains among rat pups whose dads were lean and whose mothers, called "dams," were either lean or overweight (from overfeeding) before conception and throughout pregnancy.

The offspring of overweight dams showed remarkable sensitivity to the high-fat rations. They gained significantly more weight, and more of that weight as fat mass, than did the offspring of lean dams.

By Marcia Wood

Source:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100315.htm