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Study Links Obese Moms, Chubby Kids

June 12, 2005

By Anna Davison

News-Press Staff Writer

Local research seeks clues to children's weight gain

Overweight mothers may predispose their children to obesity early in the infants' lives, according to work by scientists at the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute in Santa Barbara.

Researchers found that the obese mothers in the study gave their babies more food, allowed them to sleep longer and played with them less than slimmer mothers. That could increase their chances of growing into chubby children, the researchers say -- and overweight kids are much more likely than their slimmer friends to become hefty adults and to face a variety of health problems.

Because excess pounds are so often a lifelong problem, "It's very important to find out what causes you to gain weight in the early years," said Fima Lifshitz, director of pediatrics and senior scientist at the institute. He carried out the study, published in a recent issue of Nutrition Journal, with Russell Rising, a childhood nutritionist at the institute, and Ana Ojeda. Some of the work was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The children of overweight parents are much more likely to be big than the offspring of lean parents, Dr. Lifshitz said, but "what we are finding is obesity is not only in your genes; it's in what you do, how much energy you take in, how much energy you expend -- and it starts in infancy."