Childhood Obesity: The Possible Role of Maternal Smoking and Impact on Public Health

Abstract

In industrialized countries, overweight and obesity are the most common nutritional disorders, showing an increasing prevalence. Overweight children have a high risk for being overweight in adulthood, and therefore are at risk for the disease states associated with obesity, including Type 2 diabetes. Recently, Montgomery and Ekbom (2002), von Kries et al. (2002), and Toschke et al. (2002) have reported a higher prevalence of obesity in children at school entry or as adults whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy. These observations of an increased risk for overweight and obesity have major implications for the understanding of fetal programming by developmental factors and for the prevention of obesity. The strength of the effect of maternal smoking in the final logistic regression model was comparable to that of the other significant risk factors amenable to prevention such as frequent TV viewing/video games and frequent consumption of snacks while watching TV. The offspring of pregnant rats exposed to...