Specialists argued that parental obesity might influence the development of children. A new study proved that being overweight does not only affects your state of health but also affect your children’s health. The study which was recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics showed that the future children of obese couples might be at risk of developing delays.
- Mother’s weight as well as father’s weight might influence the development of children.
- Parental obesity might affect the state of health of their future baby.
- A new study has shown the effects of parents’ obesity on their children.
In the US, one out of five women is obese at the moment when they get pregnant. Their approximate body mass index measures 30. The healthy average body mass index was estimated to be between 18.5 and 24.9. Some previous researches have considered the body weight of fathers, even if it is a fact that about 20% to 30% of US citizens are obese.
Dr. Edwina Yeung, who is an investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, argued that the study that she and her team developed includes data about both mothers and fathers. The results analyzing parental obesity suggested that the weight of fathers also has a significant impact on the development of the child.
This team of researchers has analyzed 4,821 children with ages between four months to three years old between 2008 and 2010. They have revealed some particular effects which manifest in children, depending on which one of the parents is obese. Children who had obese mothers were more likely to develop difficulties in using small muscles compared to underweight or normal mothers.
Paternal obesity proved to influence the increase of failure when it comes to fulfilling simple personal-social tasks, like playing, undressing or feeding. Infants born to very obese couples were exposed to fail to solve simple problems in a test. The team of researchers gathered data from the ongoing Upstate KIDS study. This survey included information about six thousand babies born in New York state.
The research aimed to register the motor, increase and social development of kids but also its connection with infertility treatments, pregnancy issues, rising maternal age and obesity. Yeung explained that parents were periodically asked to fill in the Ages and Stages Questionnaire for their kids. The questionnaire was bound to establish whether their kid was on track for developing a behavior appropriate for her or his age.
The study did not prove a cause and an effect, but it indicated that parental obesity might influence the development of their children. Researchers used the correlations between children’s scores on a screening questionnaire and the BMI of their parents.
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