Early Nutrition Programming and Health
Outcomes in Later Life
Obesity and Beyond

At first, the evidence for early nutrition programming in humans, with its emphasis
on low birth weight babies and fetal growth restriction, suggested that the concept
might have only a limited application to a small group of the population. It appeared
unable to offer any remedies for current health problems such as the dramatic
increase in the prevalence of obesity and its consequences. More recently however,
the observation that fetal overnutrition may lead to the same outcomes as fetal
undernutrition in terms of increased risk of obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance
and CVD in adult life, implied that programming effects are seen across the nutritional spectrum and this has lead to the search for a common mechanism. The role
of accelerated growth, either due to catch-up growth after fetal growth restriction
or to faster growth rates in formula fed infants has been suggested as a unifying
factor and is one possible common mechanism which is being investigated.
Furthermore, the possibility that maternal obesity might programme fetal growth
and metabolism to be more susceptible to weight gain in later life gives rise to the
potential for an intergenerational cycle of obesity which can only make matters
worse. These insights have greatly extended the scope and potential impact of the
early nutrition programming concept and have shown that it is of huge contemporary relevance with major public health significance