Preventing Childhood Obesity: A Two-pronged Approach Starting in Pregnancy and the First Year Postpartum

Our longitudinal aim is to reduce childhood obesity using our two-pronged intervention program, which includes healthy food choices and increased physical activity initiated during pregnancy and re-instated in the early period after delivery for overweight and obese women. We will accomplish this with our family-based Nutrition and Exercise Lifestyle Intervention Program (NELIP) to promote healthy family living. An intervention targeting school-aged children on the importance of healthy lifestyles occurs too late to prevent childhood obesity and establish lifelong healthy body weights. To break this spiraling cycle of generations of unhealthy body weights in Canadian children, and to reduce the risk of future obesity-related health problems, it is necessary to prevent excessive pregnancy weight gain, high blood sugars in the mother and to promote a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy and early post delivery. With our NELIP team as a cornerstone, and our pilot data already collected with promising results, we foresee an opportunity over the next 3 years to contribute to changing patient care with emphasis on disease prevention and healthy family lifestyle initiation early in life to reverse the trend of childhood obesity. With a solid research-based initiative from the lab to the community by educating health care providers, future health care can be improved by putting prevention-based programs into practice. Healthy women = healthy babies = healthy families = healthy futures!!