Britannica
Sources used in this answer
How did high-fat diets during pregnancy affect offspring in animal studies?
Created from Britannica articles
using AI.
AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
obesity
The excessive accumulation of body fat can cause serious medical conditions.
In animal studies, such as those involving rats, maternal consumption of high-fat diets during pregnancy has been shown to program overeating behavior in offspring.1
The physiological mechanism for this involves fat-induced changes in the developing fetal brain. Specifically, the fetuses of mothers fed high-fat diets exhibit increased production of appetite-stimulating proteins known as orexigenic peptides. These peptides continue to be produced at elevated levels throughout the offspring's lifetime. Consequently, these animals tend to consume more food, gain more weight, and reach sexual maturity earlier than offspring born to mothers who consumed normal levels of fat.1