U.S. researchers followed 96 women and their children and found that babies who ingested 4.5 grams of trans fat per day were two times more likely to have a high percentage of body fat, reports babycenter.com.
Similarly, mothers who consumed 4.5 grams of trans fat per day were six times more likely to be overweight. The study about the dangers of trans fat was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The results of the study suggest that the link between trans fat and weight gain for women may be stronger after childbirth and during breastfeeding.
Future research is needed to learn more about the connection between a mother’s consumption of trans fat and its long-term effects on the health of her child.
“It would help to be able to follow the child from when the mother was pregnant, through birth, and then adolescence, so that we can confirm what the type of infant feeding and maternal diet during breastfeeding have to do with the recent epidemic of childhood obesity,” said study co-author Alex Anderson, an assistant professor in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.