More evidence that parents’ obesity affects kids

By Dr John Ellis MD

Well, of course! We might expect that an overweight or obese mom might have passed their genes, or the food environment, on to their kids.

But, it appears that women who have gastric bypass surgery have kids AFTER surgery that are much less likely to grow up to be obese than the kids they’d already had BEFORE surgery.

The excellent blog, Obesity Panacea notes:

It is becoming relatively well established that the environment that a fetus experiences in the womb can have a dramatic impact of their health well into adulthood. So for example, when pregnant animals are overfed, their offspring are more likely to experience both obesity and metabolic dysfunction than the offspring of animals who were not overfed.

Animal studies that shows when dads were fed a high-fat diet, their daughters became prediabetic.

I was able to lose the weight without surgery. But I certainly contemplated it. I preferred to change my lifestyle, but for many folks this doesn’t work. Weight loss surgery can be life-saving for many folks.

So, parents-to-be: try to stay healthy. Grandparents-to-be: pass this on to your adult kids!