Early Life Nutritional Programming of Obesity: Mother-Child Cohort Studies

Background: The obesity epidemic has resulted in more
overweight/obesewomen before and during pregnancy. Their offspring
tend to have higherbirth weights and more body fat, and carry an
increased risk of obesitylater in life. These effects may partly be
related to the heightenedrisk of gestational diabetes, occurring in
at least 16% of allpregnancies irrespective of current body weight.
Methods: An ILSI Europeworkshop reviewed the key contributors
leading to adverse outcomes inpregnancy and childhood, including
gestational weight gain andnutrition. New research opportunities
from prospective mother-childcohort studies were explored. Results:
Simple measures of gestationalweight gain provide insufficient
detail of the underlying physiologicaland metabolic adaptations
occurring in pregnancy, and should becomplemented by measures of
body composition, metabolic and endocrineresponses. Recordings of
maternal dietary intake and nutrient status areoften limited and
potential correlations with gestational weight gainhave been poorly
studied. Many pregnancies in overweight/obese women
areuncomplicated and result in offspring of normal weight, leaving
the maindeterminants of later adverse outcomes to be clarified.
Conclusions: Theworkshop provided insights of primary measurements
for thecharacterization of sustainable nutritional intervention
strategies inthe mother, infant and child for preventing obesity in
later life.