Are you giving your baby-to-be bad food habits?
Moms-to-be, beware! If you’re using pregnancy as an excuse to chow down on supersized king-whopper meals, cupcakes, donuts, chips and the entire Hershey’s range, you may be storing up trouble for the future.
New research suggests that moms who eat junk food while they’re pregnant and breastfeeding may be putting their kids at increased risk of obesity later in life. Spoiling yourself with fatty or sugary foods could be a recipe for possible disaster for your child, not just your waistline. So says a study in the British Journal of Nutrition, which warns that healthy eating habits need to start in-utero. According to Professor Neil Stickland, co-author of the study, “future mothers should be aware that pregnancy and breastfeeding aren’t the time to overindulge on fatty, sugary treats on the misguided assumption that they’re ‘eating for two’.”
The new research looked at rats fed a diet of processed junk food – the usual suspects: donuts, cookies, chips and candy – during pregnancy. The well-fed rodents went on have litters of babies who had a distinct preference for junk food rich in sugar, fat and salt, compared to the offspring of rats that had been fed on a normal diet, and weighed in at considerably more too. The researchers are convinced their research has implications for humans.
“Our study has shown that eating large quantities of junk food when pregnant and breastfeeding could impair the normal control of appetite and promote an exacerbated taste for junk food in offspring,” says the study’s lead author, Dr Stephanie Bayol. “This could set our children on the road to obesity and make the task of teaching them healthy eating habits even more challenging.”
Obesity dangers
As many parents know, obesity is a major cause of disease, and can lead to health problems including arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. Obesity in children is on the increase, with rates trebling over the last two decades. This research suggests that a mom’s diet could result in a tendency towards obesity, with exposure to unhealthy foods while in the womb or breastfeeding potentially programming our kids to prefer junk food later in life.
Supernanny’s resident nutritionist, Yvonne Wake, says she isn’t surprised by the new research. “It’s time we moved on from the old fashioned notion that moms-to-be should eat for two,’” she says. “Women should eat healthily before they’re pregnant and not change their diet while they are pregnant. You don’t suddenly want to become an unhealthy eater.
“It’s important not to use pregnancy as an excuse to stuff yourself with junk. This research shows that if a mom-to-be does so, it’s not only unhealthy for her, but for her baby too.”