Obesity Raises the Risk of Birth Defects

Years ago a friend confided to me that her doctor "wouldn't let her" get pregnant unless she lost some weight - a lot of it. She never did lose the weight, or get pregnant, but she did adopt several children.

I didn't ask, and don't know if her doctor was concerned for her, or for the effects on a baby, but new studies are now showing that there is a definite correlation between obesity during pregnancy and birth defects.

With obesity rampant in the U.S., authorities say that now about 1/3 of all women of reproductive age are obese. Pregnancy raises their risk of hypertension and diabetes, among other things. Risks for the baby include pre-term birth and defects such as cleft palate, hydrocephaly, limb reduction, and more.

About 3% of all babies suffer from birth defects, compared to 4% of babies of obese mothers.

While researchers have not yet determined the cause, they speculate that it could be undiagnosed diabetes, or a nutritional deficiency in the mother. (Yes, you definitely can be nutritionally deficient and still overweight.)

Eating Your Way to Disease?

"More die in the United States of too
much food than of too little."
—John Kenneth Galbraith

You've seen me say many times that I think the pharmaceutical industry wants to keep us just well enough to keep going back for more pills. I do believe that, and I do feel disgusted with the whole medical industry for wanting only to treat the symptoms of disease rather than the root cause.

Well tonight I happened to read the Nightingale Conant newsletter, and it is all about how economics - primarily the marketing of the food industry - has pushed Americans into obesity. And of course, they're doing it with the blessings of the pharmaceutical industry, because that means selling more pills for everything from weight loss to high blood pressure to diabetes - and the list goes on.

The article was rather long and I don't want to omit anything by trying to summarize, so go here and have a read.

The one thing I saw in this article that I couldn't accept was the statement that a banana will last 6 or 8 weeks. I think he must have meant days!Or else he meant from the time it is grass-green.

I've often thought about the size of a bottle of pop when I was a kid - 8 ounces? And pop wasn't an everyday beverage. It was a treat - and big fun to get out of those pop machines with the sliders. Then about the time I was in college the bottles got big - 16 ounces. And they came in 8-packs instead of 6-packs. Nobody bought pop by the case yet then.

I had a roommate who bought an 8-pack of 16 ounce Pepsi's every afternoon and drank them all while she did homework. I wonder if she's obese now, or if all her teeth fell out? Guess I'll never know, since we didn't stay in touch.

But the point is, making the bottles bigger was a marketing decision. Even if all you wanted was 8 ounces, you had to buy 12 or 16. So, most of the time, you'd drink it. And the 8-packs encouraged you to have more on hand. After all, you saved money buy buying in multiples rather than just taking one or two. So there it was in the refrigerator - easier to grab and go than to pour a glass of juice.

Since then we've seen sizes grow and grow - until now kids walk around with 32 ounce paper cups filled with pop. Maybe they come in even bigger sizes and I haven't noticed.

But it all ties in with what you'll read in that article...