Fat Hatred Bingo! Blame the Mother Bingo! BINGO, I Say!

A new study (yay! I love new studies!) "suggests" that "obese mothers put newborns at greater risk for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, stroke, heart disease and other ills." Grave news indeed. The study's co-author, Staci D. Bilbo, of Duke University, explains that the researchers' "hope" is that "these data will lead people to consider the consequences of their dietary intakes not only for their own health, but also for their children's health, and potentially even their grandchildren's health."

Think of the childrenz, Fat Moms! Because, yo:
"If there ever was a maternal hex, obesity might be it," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the [Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology] journal, "and as it turns out, even after the weight comes off, the biggest loser isn't a mother, but her child."
Maternal hex! HEXFAT!

Now, if you're a fat-assed fatsronaut like me, you may be wondering just what the study entailed that yielded these shocking conclusions about HEXFAT. Well, wonder no more:
Bilbo and colleagues placed rats on one of three diets (low-fat, high-saturated fat, and high-trans fat) four weeks prior to mating and throughout pregnancy and lactation. The high-fat diets rendered the mice clinically obese.

The newborn pups' brains were analyzed. Offspring born to mothers on the high-fat diets showed increased immune cell activation and release of injurious substances known as cytokines, all right after birth. The changes stuck even until the newborns became adults, and even after they were put on low-fat diets.
Hmm. It's probably just all the fat clogging my brain, but I can't help but notice that extrapolating this data to human women means assuming that every human woman who is fat is fat because of high-fat diets. Which is a pretty fat assumption.

Additionally, by axiomatically linking "high-fat diet" to "obese mother," the findings are being directed at fat bodies rather than fat diets, excluding from warnings thin women with high metabolisms who eat a fat-rich diet.

That is, if warnings are even warranted:
The study, done on rats, found that their body chemistry changed for life if mom was obese. Researchers expect the same phenomenon would occur in humans, given the similar physiologies, but more research is needed to confirm that.
More research is needed. The headline at MSNBC reads: "Mom's obesity puts kids at risk for host of ills." Research schmesearch.


[H/T to Shaker Broce.]


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