Center on Social Dynamics and Policy, Economics Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, USA.
Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Obesity (Silver Spring). 2021 Apr;29(4):731-739. doi: 10.1002/oby.23105. Epub 2021 Feb 22.
Experiments with animals suggest that high sugar consumption during pregnancy may predispose offspring to obesity, but few human studies have examined this relationship. This study explored the association between the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) during pregnancy and caloric intake through childhood.
Using cohort data on child weight, height, and physical activity levels, a lab-validated microsimulation model of energy balance was employed to infer the caloric intake of children through age 11 years. Random effects models were then employed to explore the relationships between prenatal maternal consumption and inferred caloric intake during childhood.
An additional daily serving of SSBs during the second trimester of pregnancy was associated with an increase in child consumption of 13 kcal/d (95% CI: 1.2-26.8). Age-stratified models adjusting for maternal and child covariates suggested that this association was strongest for children aged 2.5 to 5.5 years. The consumption of SSBs during the first trimester was not found to have a consistently positive relationship to caloric intake.
These findings suggest that SSB consumption during the second trimester of pregnancy is associated with child energy intake and may influence anthropometry in early childhood, which is consistent with and suggestive of the presence of biological causal pathways alongside likely simultaneous contributions of social and environmental influences.
动物实验表明，妊娠期间高糖摄入可能使后代易患肥胖症，但很少有人研究过这种关系。本研究探讨了妊娠期间摄入含糖饮料（SSB）与通过儿童期摄入热量之间的关系。
利用儿童体重、身高和身体活动水平的队列数据，采用经过实验室验证的能量平衡微模拟模型，推断儿童到 11 岁时的热量摄入。然后，采用随机效应模型探讨妊娠中期母亲摄入与儿童期推断热量摄入之间的关系。
妊娠中期每天多摄入一份 SSB，与儿童每天多摄入 13 卡路里（95%CI：1.2-26.8）有关。调整了母亲和儿童的协变量后，按年龄分层的模型表明，对于 2.5 至 5.5 岁的儿童，这种关联最强。妊娠早期 SSB 的摄入与热量摄入之间没有一致的正相关关系。
这些发现表明，妊娠中期 SSB 的摄入与儿童的能量摄入有关，并可能影响儿童早期的人体测量指标，这与存在生物学因果途径一致，并提示可能存在社会和环境影响的同时作用。
