A new study shows that a child is more likely to be overweight at a very young age — at 2 or 3 years old — if the mother was overweight or obese before she became pregnant.

The study, conducted by researchers from Ohio State University (OSU) College of Nursing and School of Public Health, is reported in the December 5, 2005 issue of the journal Pediatrics .

The researchers analyzed the data for 3,022 children included in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's (NLSY) Child-Mother file. In this study, children were weighed at three age intervals — 3, 5 and 7 years. The survey also gathered information on each child's race and ethnicity as well as the mother’s pre-pregnancy weight.

The study showed a significant relationship between a mother's weight prior to pregnancy and her child's weight. A mother's weight within one to two months before she became pregnant had the greatest impact on a child's weight at all three age intervals.

If a woman was overweight before she became pregnant, her child was nearly three times more likely to be overweight by age 7 compared to a child whose mother was not overweight or obese, according to the study. The risk that a child would be overweight at a young age increased with the degree of the mother's obesity.

Pamela Salsberry, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and an associate professor at OSU, noted that “there’s a good chance that an overweight child will stay overweight for the rest of his or her life.”

“A child who is overweight by her second birthday is more likely to be overweight at a later age,” said Dr. Salsberry. “Prevention of childhood obesity needs to begin before a woman becomes pregnant,” she added.

"A child's weight at 3 years is a good prediction of what his weight will be at age 5, and so on," Salsberry said. "Weight states tend to persist over time. "Obesity continues to rise in adults," she said. "And that risk has increased in children, too. Interventions should begin immediately for children who are already overweight at these young ages."

Other sources: National Institute of Nursing Research