Mum's diet affects baby's future, doctor says

Women who eat fried foods and take fizzy drinks while pregnant or breastfeeding could be programming their baby's brain for a lifetime of weight problems, a visiting professor from the United States says.

Mothers' eating habits could affect how babies' bodies regulated weight and fat stores, Oregon National Primate Research Centre researcher Kevin Grove said while visiting Otago University.

"This is possibly the most widely spread health issue facing pregnancy right now and it could have a long term impact on world health ," Dr Grove said in a statement today.

He is visiting the university to initiate collaborative research with department of physiology associate Professor Allan Herbison.

Dr Grove hopes to set up research investigating how the metabolic system affects female reproduction, or vice versa, in the different stages of life.

His main area of study considers how pregnant and breastfeeding mothers' diets "hardwires" the weight that their baby's body then wants to maintain for the rest of its life.

"Overweight or obese and diabetic women are more likely to give birth to babies with a "thrifty" phenotype -- babies with a bodyweight set higher than normal," Dr Grove said.

Those babies had an increased appetite and decreased metabolism to burn fewer calories and a predisposition to put any spare energy into fat stores.

"The thrifty phenotype is common in many racial groups that traditionally ate low-protein, low fat diets, did lots of physical labour, and had to weather periods when food was not plentiful," Dr Grove said.

However, while that was once beneficial, it was now a curse in a developed world with an abundance of food, and a trend towards high-fat diets.

"Because their internal bodyweight regulator has been set high, babies of overweight and obese mothers are predisposed to being obese themselves, and developing diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease," he said.

"This is not about will power... The brain doesn't care if the arteries are clogged."

The problem was huge in America, where more than half of US women were overweight or obese.

Otago University said in the statement there had been a 9 per cent increase in body mass index in 11- 12-year-olds in New Zealand over the last 10 years.

"The fact is, something needs to be done soon," Dr Grove said.

He is giving a public lecture at Dunedin Public Hospital on April 13.

- NZPA