Obese Women Produce Fat Children New Study Finds
Unless You WANT Fat Children… Lighten Up, MOM
According to the PA News, being a fat mother most likely dooms your child or children to a life of obesity. Pregnant women are far more likely to bear children with larger amounts of body fat before they reach the first decade of life – researchers revealed this today.
Catharine Gale lead a study with Professor Cyrus Cooper based at the University of Southampton. There, they discovered children unfortunate enough to be born to women with more pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) or displayed most commonly by upper arm fat during late pregnancy, are significantly more likely to labor under a larger amount of body fat themselves by age nine.
The study also revealed that mothers who smoked during pregnancy had fatter children.
Previous research made clear that infants are born with larger amounts of body fat when mom is significantly overweight while carrying the baby. The latest research indicates this fat problem is then carried on into childhood, usually adding to long-term health woes.
According to Dr Gale, “We found that mothers with a higher pre-pregnant BMI, or a larger mid-upper arm circumference in late pregnancy, tended to have children with greater ‘adiposity’ or ‘fatness’, at the age of nine.”
“Although the extent to which this is attributable to genetic factors, the influence of the mother’s lifestyle on that of her child, or the physical changes to the child’s fat mass brought on by their mother’s ‘adiposity’ during pregnancy, is not yet known.”
“We also noticed that children were likely to have greater fat mass if their mothers had smoked in pregnancy, if they had gained a lot of weight in infancy (especially boys), or had not been breastfed (especially girls).”
Whole-body-scans of 216 nine-year-old children with mothers willing to participate in the study of nutrition during pregnancy were then carried out. The study included investigations into the relationship between maternal size during pregnancy, early growth, and conclusive evidence of body composition by age nine.
