In this study, the consumption of highly processed foods during the first trimester had no discernible effect on the baby's risk of obesity.
Digital Desk: According to a recent study, a mother's consumption of highly processed meals may increase her child's risk of becoming obese.
Foods that have undergone extreme processing include baked products or packaged goods like sugary cereals, sodas, and packet snacks of various kinds. In addition to making people gain weight, it has been revealed that these foods may also contribute to childhood obesity.
Researchers from the US discovered that women might benefit from restricting their consumption of highly processed foods and following certain dietary recommendations in the study, which was published in the journal, The BMJ.
In fact, consuming too many processed foods while pregnant can result in an obese child, regardless of other lifestyle decisions that would raise the likelihood of other health issues. Over 39 million children were overweight or obese in 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which raised their risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and an early death.
Data from the Growing Up Today Study (GUTS I and II) and the Nurses Health Study II (NHS II) in the United States, which included information on 19,958 children born to 14,553 mothers (45% of whom were boys and aged 7 to 17 at study enrolment), were examined by the researchers.
Every two years, researchers looked at the mother's and kids' food intake as well as other variables. However, a different analysis was carried out when 2,790 moms and 2,925 kids were evaluated, together with data on diet from three months prior to conception through delivery.
In this study, the consumption of highly processed foods during the first trimester had no discernible effect on the baby's risk of obesity. The researchers acknowledged that some of the reported risk may be caused by other unmeasured factors as it was an observational study.
It is also well recognised that other potentially important factors have a substantial correlation with childhood obesity. Body mass index (BMI) of the mother, physical activity level, and smoking, living status (with a partner or not), the partner's education, children's ultra-processed food consumption, physical activity, and sedentary time.
The data suggests that refining dietary recommendations and "the development of programs to improve the nutrition of women of reproductive age to promote offspring health" should be supported.
Although the scientific result isn't clear, she added, kids even sometimes inculcate habits of consuming processed foods when they see their mother doing the same at home. "Women who consume a lot of packaged food, their children are at a 20% higher risk of obesity than those who aren't consuming ultra-processed food," said Deepti Khatuja.
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