Hello!
A few months ago I posted about the Barker Theory and how they are finding that birth weight is linked to heart disease and overall health as we human beings get older.
I recently came accross this article that I thought was amazing. So, please read below to read it.
Pregnant mamas: Eat! It’s okay. It can be awful to see the scale climb up and up with each passing week of pregnancy but try not to worry about it You are growing another human being! You need to nutrients and the protein AND the calories AND the fats to grow your babies nice and healthy! Go ahead and eat up and eat well!

Birth Weight Predicts Physical Functioning at Age 60
ScienceDaily (Nov. 11, 2011) — Low birth weight and slow growth progressing to greater body mass in
pre-adolescence significantly increased the risk of poor physical
functioning at the age of 60 years, a new Finnish study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found.
- The risk of poor functioning was particularly high among those
individuals whose birth weight was low but who had a high body mass
index at 11 years of age, says Dr. Mikaela von Bonsdorff from the
Gerontology Research Centre at the University of Jyväskylä.
Babies who are born thin lack muscle. This is a result of fetal
development where an undernourished fetus secures the development of
vital organs such as the brain at the expense of less important tissue
such as muscle tissue, according to the Barker hypothesis.
The study by Dr. von Bonsdorff and her colleagues showed for the
first time that the effect of unfavorable fetal development can be seen
in physical functioning among people in their sixties.
This finding is disturbing, since fetal undernutrition is still
prevalent both in Western and developing countries. At the same time
obesity is rapidly increasing in all age groups.
In the present study, 1999 persons were assessed at age 60 years as
part of the larger Helsinki Birth Cohort. Their birth and childhood
growth data were extracted from medical records and matched with these
data. The child welfare system established already in the 1920′s in
Finland enabled the collection of this unique dataset.
The study was conducted in collaboration between Finnish and British
researchers from the Gerontology Research Centre at the University of
Jyväskylä, the University of Helsinki, the National Institute of Health
and Welfare and the University of Southampton. Professor David JP.
Barker, the founder of the Barker hypothesis, is a member of the
Helsinki Birth Cohort study group.
The study was funded by the Academy of Finland and the University of Jyväskylä, the University Alliance of Finland.
________________________________

Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland), via AlphaGalileo.
>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Lisa Showalter