Obesity among children has become common all across the world. Nearly a quarter of children under the age of five in the United Kingdom are overweight or obese. This figure has soared to more than a third by the time children enter secondary school. Fat children have a higher chance of becoming obese adults, with long-term health effects. Unhealthy eating habits are a significant factor related to this disease.
According to new research, encouraging women to adopt a healthy diet before becoming pregnant can lessen their children's risk of obesity. The team has discovered that children as young as eight or nine years old are more likely to be obese if their mother ate poorly during – and before – pregnancy. The findings are highly relevant for developing the Anti-Obesity Therapy Market as it differentiates critical times when efforts to minimize childhood obesity may be more effective.
The researchers examined the diets of 2,963 mother-child couples who participated in the UK Southampton Women's Survey. The trial has been tracking the health of mothers and their children for decades. When women first considered having a kid, they joined the study before getting pregnant.
The women were questioned as part of the study. Their responses were used to fill out questions about their diet and children. The researchers surveyed the mothers' diet before they became pregnant and when they were 11 and 34 weeks pregnant. They also inquired about the child's eating habits in consecutive years like six months, one year and so on.
The dietary data was utilized to assign a combined diet quality score to each mother-child pair. They divided them into five groups based on their scores: poor, poor-medium, medium, medium-better, and best.
Younger Mothers who had lower academic credentials, smoked, and had a higher BMI (Body Mass Index) before pregnancy were noticed to have kids who ate a poor diet.
The researchers performed a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scan on eight to nine-year-old children to estimate the fat tissue amount in their bodies. They also calculated the child's BMI after accounting for age and gender.
The results indicated that being in a worse food quality group with a mother was linked to a child having a higher DXA percentage body fat and BMI at eight or nine.
Childhood obesity is a serious and growing problem in the United Kingdom, with long-term health consequences that continue well into adulthood. This study illustrates the importance of intervening as early in a child's life as feasible, like during pregnancy or even before conception, to combat it.
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