Maternal obesity at the time of pregnancy is a challenging risk factor to address. In a large study by Whitaker (N = 8494), it was noted that by 4 years of age, 24.1% of children were obese if their mother was obese during the first trimester of the pregnancy compared with only 9% of children whose mother was of normal weight during the first trimester of pregnancy. When the investigators controlled for maternal race, education, age, marital status, weight gain, and smoking in the mother and birth weight, birth year, and gender in the children, the children with obese mothers were still at a greater risk for early onset obesity.
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