The incidence of childhood obesity in Australia is increasing. The most recent National Health Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in 2007-2008 one quarter of all Australian children, or around 600,000 children aged 5-17 years, were overweight or obese. This is 4% higher than in 1995 (21%).
More and more funding is going into researching this major health concern with suggestions that obesity prevention should begin early in life, possibly even before the child is born.
While the obvious paths to prevention still remain – good nutrition and physical activity – there are now numerous links between other things going on in pregnancy and the future risk of obesity in your child.
Mother’s diet
A recent international study suggested that the mother’s nutrition during pregnancy can influence her child’s risk of obesity later in life. According to this research, what the mother eats in pregnancy can alter the function of her child’s DNA, which can lead to her child laying down more fat as they develop. This is called epigenetic change, and the researchers think low carbohydrate intake early in pregnancy may be one cause.
This study found that the changes to DNA occurred regardless of how thin or fat the mother was, and the weight of the child at birth seemingly had no association with the risk of later obesity. This suggests that a slim woman could deliver a small baby which could still become obese in childhood because of changes triggered by diet during pregnancy.
Maternal stress
Your level of stress in pregnancy could also be a risk factor for obesity in your child. One particular study compared children born to mothers with exposure to prenatal stress such as the death of a close family member, with those who were unexposed to stress. The results found that severe stress in the year before conception or during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of obesity later in childhood. The effect was stronger when the stress occurred in the months just before conception.
Not enough omega-3
A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that adequate intake of omega-3 fatty acids in mid pregnancy may lower the risk of childhood obesity by about 32%. The researchers looked at the type of fats the future mothers were consuming throughout the second half of pregnancy and whether their children were obese at age 3. They found that it was EPA and DHA (omega-3 fatty acids) intake that was most associated with reducing the risk of childhood obesity.
There are numerous other benefits to taking omega-3s, especially DHA in pregnancy. In addition to reducing the risk of obesity in your child later in life, DHA plays an important, if not critical, role in the growth and functional development of the brain and eye.
Mother’s weight
Keeping your weight within the range recommended in the guidelines in pregnancy has many benefits to the child and the mother with healthy weight gain reducing the risk of obesity in childhood. High gestational weight gain is associated with macrosomia (excessive birth weight), especially in women who were overweight or obese before pregnancy.
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