Children of moms who smoked or were obese are more likely to become obese adults, reports research
A study finds that factors beyond a person's control, like socioeconomic status and whether their mom smoked or was obese, can influence whether they are overweight or obese as teenagers or adults. Glenna Nightingale of the University of Edinburgh, UK and colleagues report these findings on March 26, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One.
Obesity is considered to be a global public health concern, but experts still disagree about the precise origins and causes of rising obesity rates. One topic under debate is whether a person’s individual genetics and behaviors are more or less important than environmental factors, like socioeconomic status, in developing obesity.
In the new study, researchers estimated the impact of several factors on a person’s weight, including societal factors, like a person’s job type, as well as early life factors, like a person’s birth order, how they were delivered and whether their mother smoked or was obese. They looked specifically at whether a person was overweight, obese or severely obese at age 16 and age 42. They also looked at participants’ weight between ages 16 to 42, a range that spans the rise in obesity rates in the United Kingdom. The data came from the 1958 National Child Development Study, a long-term study that followed the lives of more than 17,000 people born in a single week in March 1958 across England, Scotland and Wales.
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