Mom-to-be diet affects child's obesity

SOUTHAMPTON, England, April 18 (UPI) -- What a woman eats during pregnancy can strongly influence her child's obesity years later because DNA may be altered, a researcher in Britain suggests.

Keith Godfrey, a professor at the University of Southampton who led a team of researchers in New Zealand and Singapore, says the researchers measured epigenetic -- non-genetic factors that cause genes to behave differently -- changes in nearly 300 children at birth.

The study showed these changes strongly predicted the degree of obesity at ages 6 or 9.

"We have shown for the first time that susceptibility to obesity cannot simply be attributed to the combination of our genes and our lifestyle, but can be triggered by influences on a baby's development in the womb, including what the mother ate," Godfrey says in a statement. "A mother's nutrition while pregnant can cause important epigenetic changes that contribute to her offspring's risk of obesity during childhood."

The findings are published in the journal Diabetes.