Tag Archives: HEI-2010

Fertility and Reproduction

A Healthy Maternal Diet During Pregnancy is Associated with Healthy Infant Birth Weight

A recent Poster session supplement to the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology examined the effect of maternal diet on birth weight of infants.

It is understood that babies born to obese women are more frequently on the “extreme” ends of the birth weight scale (i.e. either

Photo By ceejayoz (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceejayoz/3579010939/) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Photo By ceejayoz (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceejayoz/3579010939/) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
significantly overweight or significantly underweight), there hasn’t been much by way of research specifically on the effect of maternal diet on the birth weight of infants.

This study recruited 11 normal weight, 15 overweight, and 15 obese women prior to pregnancy and followed them through to full term.

Pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), dietary assessments (via questionnaires), and several body composition measurements were taken.

Dietary assessments were scored using the Health Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010).

The same measurements were taken after on or 37 weeks during gestation, plus measurements on body water content and bone mineral content.

Infant and placental weight measurements were taken at time of delivery.

Important Findings:

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Food and Cooking

The United States Food Supply is Inadequate to Support Federal Dietary Recommendations

The US Federal Government has put out dietary recommendations based on scientific research for many decades. Even with these

Photo by Flickr user Jelly Mark (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fightobesity/4800531091)
Photo by Flickr user Jelly Mark (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fightobesity/4800531091)

supposed health recommended foods and beverages, the United States is experiencing an unprecedented obesity epidemic, in addition to the prevalence of many diet-related diseases.

A new study has compared these dietary guidelines with the actual food supply in the United States, to determine if availability (or the lack thereof) of healthy foods may be contributing to the diet-related health problems plaguing Americans.

The researchers from the US and Canada looked at the most current set of dietary recommendations (as of the time of this study) using the Healthy Eating Index – 2010 (HEI-2010) and compared them with 40 years of actual US food supply data from 1970 through 2010.

Food supply data sets came from: the Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Data set, the ERS Nutrient Availability Data set, data on salt consumption from the Salt Institute, and estimates per capita of alcohol consumption from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Important Findings:

Continue reading The United States Food Supply is Inadequate to Support Federal Dietary Recommendations →