Grant: Project Grant

Obesity affects about 30% of the children in Canada, and most will carry their excess weight into adulthood. Events occurring during pregnancy are thought to play a role in 'programming' whether a child will develop obesity. Being exposed to diabetes in pregnancy, during in utero development, is known to increase the risk to develop obesity over time. However, we still don't know much about the mechanisms involved, which is important to improve prevention and treatment. We hypothesized that pregnancy and early life factors program childhood obesity through inadequate regulation of appetite. We will first identify which mechanisms leading to maternal elevated blood sugar during pregnancy is associated with obesity in preadolescents. We will then assess how early life factors such as being exposed to maternal diabetes program how much children eat when not hungry, which leads to excess weight gain and obesity over time. Finally, we will study how the gut communicates with the brain and how this is dysregulated in the context of childhood obesity and associated with appetite regulation. Our study will be conducted within Gen3G, a prospective cohort of women recruited at the first trimester of pregnancy and their child. Gen3G includes multiple research assessments in pregnancy, at delivery and at 3 and 5 years of age. For the current study (6th follow-up, about 12 years of age), prior measures (including body weight and obesity) will be repeated in addition to assessing appetite regulation and eating behaviors. We will collect blood to measure how the body communicates with the brain to control appetite and medical imaging technics will be used to identify the related brain regions. Our study based on Gen3G's detailed assessments from pregnancy to early adolescence will reveal new mechanisms that could be targeted to prevent obesity early in the child's life.