Eating for two puts unborn child at risk of junk addiction

James Randerson

Pregnant women who overindulge in junk food risk giving their child an addiction for a fatty, sugary and salty diet, according to researchers who studied the phenomenon in rats. The study counters the notion that mothers-to-be can safely overindulge because they are "eating for two".

Although the effect on rats may not necessarily be found in people, the research does back up a US study of 190,000 families published in 2005. It found that women who gained more weight during pregnancy than the US Institute of Medicine's recommended amount - 11.5 to 16 kilos (2 to 2.5 stone) - were more likely to have obese two to four-year-olds.

Neil Stickland at the UK's Royal Veterinary College and his team fed pregnant and breast-feeding rats on either a balanced diet or processed food such as doughnuts, muffins, biscuits, crisps and sweets. They then gave the offspring a choice of diets. The mothers who ate the high fat, sugar and salt diet gave birth to young with a greater preference for junk food. They also had a propensity to overeat and to put on more weight.

"They eat more and they eat an increasing proportion of junk food. It gets worse as the animals gets bigger," said Prof Stickland.

"Women may not consider pregnancy and breast-feeding as an opportunity to over-indulge on fatty, sugary and salty foods, on the misguided assumption that they are 'eating for two'," the team warn in the British Journal of Nutrition. The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Prof Stickland added that programmes to improve the diet of children at primary school, while important, may be too late. "I think the message is that we have got to start before that during pregnancy."

The research did not address how the changes in offspring occur. However, Prof Stickland speculated that a mother's junk food diet might affect the development of reward centres in the brain involved in the feeling of satiety and response to drugs. "The foetus is getting used to the high fat, sugary and high salt diet and seems to prime the reward centres in the brain so it needs more when it is born," he said, "It's an addiction if you like."

UK independant