Mom-to-be...be warned

By Elizabeth Hashagen

Alert: Pregnant women put down the Doritos & Devil dogs!!

We'll, we've always heard "you are what you eat" -- and when your pregnant -- I guess that goes for the baby as well.

You see there's a new study by the Royal Veterinary College and London's Welcome Trust ( it's in the The Journal of Physiology).   It found eating a poor diet when pregnant or breastfeeding could cause long-lasting health damage to the child.

The new study says a poor diet during pregnancy can lead to obesity prone children.

Foods to stay away from...cookies, doughnuts, and chips are on that list!

Here's how the study worked:

The team fed one group of female rats a diet of processed junk food such as donuts, muffins, cookies, chips and sweets during pregnancy and breast-feeding, while another group of females received a healthy diet of regular food.

The researchers compared the offspring of the two groups and found those born to the junk food fed moms had higher levels of cholesterol and triglycerides--(a type of fat found in the bloodstream).

Both increase the risk of heart disease.

The junk food fed animals had a higher diabetes risk - even if THEY ate healthy.

They were even more likely to crave similar snacks.

(I wonder how they can figure out what a rat craves...)

But the bottom line--your child's sweet tooth may have been created by your pregnancy cravings!

Last year US research showed that as pregnant women grew heavier, they increased their chances of having an obese child.

Comments

[Elizabeth]

I eat farely heathly.. but I have to admit I have been getting crazy cravings..
Lots of TCBY and Raph's ices these day-- but at least I'm not getting full fat ice cream:)
It is hard.. but I'll try to keep snacking on carrots :)

[Tiffany]

Very interesting article! I bet you will be taking this into consideration since I hear from Erin's blog that you are pregnant!

COngratulations
Tiffany

[Bob]

Are those any of your favorites? It will be awfully hard to avoid some of those goodies. But what does it hurt to have one cookie once in a while? Or chocolate for that matter? That has milk in it. A loophole!!!