"Studies have shown that exclusive breastfeeding - breastfeeding alone, not breastfeeding combined with bottle-feeding -prevents obesity," McCormick said. "Getting enough fiber - eating apples instead of drinking apple juice, for example - also helps keep babies on track to a healthy weight. By contrast, improper early introduction of cereal by adding it to an infant's bottle promotes obesity."

McCormick observed that maternal data collected in his group's investigation matched well with other studies of children and adolescents that showed higher odds of obesity among boys and girls whose mothers were already obese before becoming pregnant or who gained an excessive amount of weight during pregnancy. Such results, he said, added even more urgency to the need to deal with childhood weight issues effectively and address what could be a multigenerational cycle of obesity.

"We need to do a lot better as clinicians and educators at getting our community educated and working through the entire age spectrum, because babies who are overweight are more likely to be overweight children and adolescents, and then later, when obese women are ready to have a family, their babies are more likely to become obese," McCormick said. "We need to deal with this through all ages and through pregnancy, because if a woman is already overweight when she becomes pregnant, it's extremely difficult for her to do anything about her weight at that point."

Source: University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston