Parent obesity may affect child development, study says

We know that mother obesity during pregnancy directly affects the health of her children, but the latest studies say that the father's weight also has a significant impact as well, details in the following article:

Excessive weight gain for a parent delays children's development. According to the latest studies, what is striking is that the effect of father obesity differs from that of mother obesity and the results multiply when the two are overweight. Let's get to know the details together:

A study published in the Journal of the U.S. National Health Institutes (NIH) found that children born to obese mothers were more likely to delay the growth of fine motor skills, and that children born to obese parents were more likely to delay the growth of social skills, while children born to obese mothers were more likely to develop problem solving skills.

Previous studies have not paid much attention to the father's weight, but have focused only on the weight of the mother before, during and after pregnancy, but this study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has seen vital and important information about parents, to find that the father's weight has a significant impact on the development of children's skills and their mental and social development.

The researchers collected the study data through questionnaires that included questions about the health of the general family, the weight of the mother and father before, during and after pregnancy, and collected children's data after the work of a set of standard activities that brought together mothers and children through which the abilities of children in various developmental fields were measured. The study did not aim to diagnose specific developmental disabilities; it examined the skill set and abilities in order to turn children into more accurate examinations if necessary.

More than 5,000 families participated in the study data collection phase between 2008 and 2010, when tests began four months after the birth of the children, and were repeated six times until the children reached the age of three.

The results of obese mothers' children were much weaker than those of normal-weight mothers, 70% failed to examine fine motor skills at the age of 3, 75% of children of obese parents failed to test social development skills at the same age, and children whose two parents were obese failed to test problem-solving skills three times more than those of normal-weight parents (read:  How to deal with children).

It is not yet known why parental obesity affects the growth of children, but researchers have suggested that some animal studies have found that obesity during pregnancy may lead to some infections that affect fetal brain development, adding that father obesity may affect the composition of genes in sperm.

If the information is correct in this study, doctors should take into account the weight of the parents when regularly examining the development of children in order to detect and monitor any developmental delays and take precautions and make the necessary interventions