Obese children may have their mothers to blame - that's if the mothers smoked while pregnant. This comes from a German study of nearly 6,500 children between ages five and seven years old. All the children were evaluated for obesity.
The researchers found a relationship between the number of cigarettes a child's mother smoked while pregnant and the chances of the child was obese. The more cigarettes the pregnant women smoked daily, the greater the chances of their children being overweight. Eight percent of children whose mothers never smoked during pregnancy were overweight. The percent increased to 14% if the mother smoked 1-10 cigarettes per day and to 17% for over 10 cigarettes per day. No relationship between obesity and smoking after birth was found.
The next step in research is to find the mechanism that causes this relationship. Whatever the mechanism, it is another reason why pregnant women shouldn't smoke.
American Journal of Epidemiology, 11/02.
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