Maternal health and eating habits: metabolic consequences and impact on child health

• A suboptimal maternal diet alters fetal growth and promotes long-term outcomes.
• Inadequate or excessive food intake impacts on appetite regulation and adiposity.
• The timing of a nutritional challenge is a primary factor determining the outcome.
• Long-term adverse outcomes are dependent on a second challenge in later life.

Apart from direct inheritance and the effects of a shared environment, maternal health, eating habits and diet can affect offspring health by developmental programming. Suboptimal maternal nutrition (i.e., either a reduction or an increase above requirement) or other insults experienced by the developing fetus can induce significant changes in adipose tissue and brain development, energy homeostasis, and the structure of vital organs. These can produce long-lasting adaptations that influence later energy balance, and increase the susceptibility of that individual to obesity and the components of the metabolic syndrome. Studies that elucidate the mechanisms behind these associations will have a positive impact on the health of the future adult population and may help to contain the obesity epidemic.