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Perspective

Dangers of dieting: what advice should be given to obese expectant mothers?

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Pages 39-47 | Published online: 10 Jan 2014
 

Abstract

With the increased incidence of obesity in women of child-bearing age, there is a need to improve the dietary advice given to these individuals. This is a challenging task as obese women may be as likely to have infants who are small for gestational age as large for gestational age. In addition, obese women are susceptible to developing preeclampsia and to giving birth prematurely. It is well established from experimental studies that reducing maternal food intake at different stages of gestation can have pronounced adverse effects on the long-term metabolic and cardiovascular health of the offspring. A simple reduction in food intake by obese women when they become pregnant may not, therefore, be an optimal strategy for either improving their metabolic health or that of the growing fetus. A better strategy may be to encourage a change in overall dietary composition to promote a more health-conscious diet rather than reducing food intake or avoiding specific dietary components. The problem faced by pregnant women reflects society-wide concerns of obesity and its main causes. Given that the incidence of obesity continues to rise despite the increasing number of intervention strategies, the likelihood of avoiding excess weight before and during pregnancy remain limited.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors acknowledge the support of the European Union Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technical Development of the European Community – The Early Nutrition Programming Project (FOOD-CT-2005- 007036), the Nutricia Research Foundation (2009-35) and the Nottingham Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit in their research. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

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