14 DAY TRIAL // For many women who wrongly starve to maintain their body contour, pregnancy is the best mental motivation for unleashing their obsession for food and start pigging out with all kinds of crap.
But a new research made at the Royal Veterinary College, London, has shown that eating junk food, rich in fat, sugars and salt, during pregnancy and breastfeeding could expose the child to overeating and obesity. The old assumption that they are "eating for two" appears to be obsolete.
The researchers fed rats on a diet of processed junk food made of doughnuts, muffins, biscuits, crisps and sweets during pregnancy and lactation. Their offspring overate and chose the junk foods compared to the rat offspring whose mothers were fed on regular food.
These discoveries could have human implications and are crucial in our era of obesity pandemics, linked with a boom of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. In 2005, about 1.6 billion humans were overweight and 400 million obese. Over 20 million children younger than 5 are overweight.
"Our study has shown that eating large quantities of junk food when pregnant and breastfeeding could impair the normal control of appetite and promote an exacerbated taste for junk food in offspring. This could send offspring on the road to obesity and make the task of teaching healthy eating habits in children even more challenging." said lead author Dr St?phanie Bayol.
Eating is not just a matter of hormones and energy balance; it also involves brains' "reward centers" and addiction to feeding can overcome satiety regulation.
Previous studies revealed that junk food turns off the satiety centers while boosting hunger and turning on the reward centers. "Exposure to a maternal junk food diet during their fetal and suckling life might help explain why some individuals might find it harder than others to control their junk food intake even when given access to healthier foods later in life," explained Bayol.
"Our research shows that healthy eating habits need to start during the fetal and suckling life of an individual. Giving children better school dinners is very good, but more needs to be done to raise awareness in pregnant and breastfeeding women as well. Future mothers should be aware that pregnancy and lactation are not the time to over-indulge on fatty-sugary treats on the misguided assumption that they are 'eating for two'." warned co-author Professor Neil Stickland, head of the Royal Veterinary College.