Overeating Moms Program Their Children for Future Obesity

A rather sobering animal study drives home the point that mothers eating too much food prior to and during pregnancy program the physiology of the offspring to be obese even before the child has had anything to eat! The study shows that offspring subjected to a mother's dietary abuse have higher body fat and smaller livers--factors that set the stage for compromised metabolism and an easy path to obesity.

Many mothers today are overweight during their childbearing years and are eating excess amounts of food, especially fatty foods. The epigenetic gene settings that occur in the baby under these circumstances are of great concern to the future health of the child. This study indicates that the size of the liver is impaired. The liver is the main metabolic organ in your body. An impaired liver poses so many problems to human health it is hard to count them all. Talk about getting a bad dealing of the epigenetic deck.

Mothers need to understand the importance of balanced nutrition and healthy eating. The only good news about the study was that a mother overeating up until pregnancy could still prevent these adverse changes simply by improving her diet during pregnancy. Ideally, all women should be eating in harmony with leptin at an optimal body weight prior to getting pregnant. This is especially important for the second, third, or fourth pregnancy, meaning women should get their weight back to ideal between babies before getting pregnant again.

The healthy future and intelligence of our society depends in no small part on the responsibility of mothers to eat well before and during pregnancy.