Pregnant women who drink non-diet sodas during pregnancy are more likely to have kids who carry extra body fat by age 7, researchers from Harvard Medical School in Boston say.
In the study of more than 1,000 mother-child pairs, each additional serving of sugary soda per day consumed in pregnancy was associated with higher increments of waist size and body mass in kids years later.
Although past research has tied soft drinks and some fruit drinks to excess weight gain, obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, few have looked at beverage intake during pregnancy.
Since childhood obesity is hard to treat, it’s important to identify modifiable factors that occur during pregnancy and during infancy so prevention can start early.
About the study
The researchers recruited 1,078 women from eight obstetric offices in eastern Massachusetts.
The study team had in-person meetings with each woman at the end of her first and second trimesters, as well as during the first few months after her baby was born. In addition, kids were assessed in early childhood, around age 3, and once again in mid-childhood, around age 8. Mothers also completed mailed questionnaires every year for the child’s first six birthdays.
At all visits, researchers collected information about both parents and details of the household. During pregnancy, women answered questionnaires about what they typically ate and drank, including how much regular and sugar-free soda, fruit juice, fruit drinks and water they consumed each day.
At the mid-childhood visit, when kids were between ages 6 and 11 years, the research team measured each child’s height, weight, waist circumference and skinfold thickness. With these measurements, they calculated body fat percentage and body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height.
Overweight was highest in kids whose mothers drank two servings daily
The researchers found that more than half of mothers had consumed more than half a serving a day of non-diet soda during pregnancy, and nearly 10 percent had consumed two or more servings a day.
About one quarter of the children were overweight or obese by mid-childhood. BMI, waist circumference and skinfold thickness were highest among kids whose mothers drank at least two servings of sugary drinks per day.
Only regular sodas were associated with this difference. Juice, diet soda and water consumed during pregnancy weren’t linked to a higher BMI score in kids. The research team also didn’t see differences based on the mother’s weight, race or ethnicity, the child’s gender or the amount of soda children themselves drank.
What’s surprising is that these findings suggest that maternal intake of regular soft drinks may be more important than child intake.
The links between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity are well-established. These new findings, though, suggest that mothers’ consumption is important, too.
Source: Pediatrics, online July 10, 2017.
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