A study carried out at the Royal Veterinary College, London, and sponsored by the Wellcome Trust reveals that Mothers-to-be who over indulge themselves with junk food may most possibly be setting their children's dietary preferences before they are even born, besides most likely giving birth to babies with a propensity for being obese.
The study implies that expectant mothers and mothers who were breast feeding should not eat too much of sugary, fatty, and salty foods under the misguided assumption that they are "eating for two".
Published in the British Journal of Nutrition the report states that in a study, rats given a diet of processed low nutritional junk foods such as biscuits, suites and crisps, while they were pregnant and lactating later gave birth to babies that also showed a marked preference for similar types of junk foods in comparison to the babies of other rats that were given their normal feed.
As was to be expected, the rats allowed to eat unrestricted quantities of sweets consumed more food overall. What was significant was that on being born their offspring showed marked preferences for junk food in their food choices. And this behavior was markedly different from the eating behavior compared with the babies of the rats fed more sensible food. These rats were already overweight ten weeks after birth.
The scientists believe that these findings can be applied to humans. Obesity is a common malady of our times and is associated with increased risks of contracting diseases such as cancer, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
The World Health Organization reports that 1.6 billion humans all over the world were categorized as overweight and 400 million were classified as being obese in 2005. What is especially worrying is that while obesity was once the bugbear of adults, more and more children today, 20 million of them under five years, are also being categorized as overweight. Here, perhaps, is one reason why children, and consequently adults, have a propensity for over indulging, the primary cause of obesity.
Dr Stéphanie Bayol, lead author of the report stated, “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…This could send offspring on the road to obesity and make the task of teaching healthy eating habits in children even more challenging.”
Scientists have two theories for this. Some believe that babies are predisposed to the tastes and the smells characteristic of the diets the mother ingests. Their selective preferences for food can be traced back to the fetus when certain tastes such as spices and other food compounds enter the amniotic fluid and breast milk. Babies ingest both these through their mouths and the tastes for them are developed.
Other scientists like Prof Stickland speculate that a mother's junk food diet might affect the enhancement of reward centers in the brain involved in the feeling of response to drugs and satiety. "The fetus is getting used to the high fat, sugary and high salt diet and seems to prime the reward centers in the brain so it needs more when it is born,” he said. “It's an addiction if you like."
Bayol suggests, “Women shouldn't justify indulging on junk foods because they're eating for two. There's more and more evidence this will have consequences for the development and the long-term health of the offspring.”
The study is not without its dissenters, however. Research nutritionist at the University of Sheffield, Fiona Ford, said that it would not be right to encourage feelings of guilt in women for eating some unhealthy snacks during pregnancy without it being definitely proven that the same effect applied to humans.
And from London's Institute of Child Health, Dr Atul Singham, was also slightly skeptical regarding the likely scale of "fetal programming" in child diet until it was proven in human studies.
However, the research does seem to be supported by an earlier study of 190,000 families. It observed that women gaining more weight during pregnancy than the 11.5 to 16 kilos recommended by the US Institute of Medicine were more apt to have obese two to four-year-olds.
