December 5, 2005 -- Mother’s Weight Seen As Factor in Child Obesity

A child is more likely to be overweight at a very early age and to remain overweight if the mother was overweight or obese before she became pregnant, according to a study cited today by the National Institute for Nursing Research (NINR) in the National Institutes of Health (NIH). “A child’s overweight at 3 years is a good prediction of what his weight will be at age 5, and so on,” said Pamela Salsberry, the lead author of a study that looked at data for more than 3,000 children in the child/mother file of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. “Prevention of childhood obesity needs to begin before a woman becomes pregnant. Interventions should begin immediately for children who are already overweight at these young ages.” The study identified “overweight” as a body mass index in (BMI) in the 95th percentile for the child’s age and gender, meaning the child is heavier than 95 percent of his or her peers. The study, “Dynamics of Early Childhood Overweight,” appears in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics.