A study out of Europe, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, looked at 2000 Swedish kids and found that there was a reduced ability to pay attention in school or preschool among those whose mothers had been overweight.
Some possible reasons given:
- Excess weight might disrupt mothers’ metabolism, making it harder for nutrients essential to brain development to reach the fetus
- Pregnancy puts huge stress on the metabolism, and excessive weight gain might throw it out of balance – perhaps by raising mothers’ levels of blood glucose, or of the hormone leptin
- Inadequate vitamin D, which is linked to mental development and is known to be present in lower levels in overweight women
- Greater exposure to damaging chemicals, which accumulate in body fat. Continue reading “Increased ADHD if Mom Overweight?”
