Do Associations Between Prenatal Dietary Inflammation and Child Adiposity Trajectories Differ by Levels of Psychosocial Stress in Pregnancy?
It is increasingly recognized that psychosocial stress and nutrition in pregnancy each has an impact on future child outcomes, including child adiposity, an important predictor of lifelong cardiometabolic health. While increased stress and poor nutrition have been found to co-occur in pregnancy, little is known about their combined longitudinal associations with child obesity-related outcomes. The findings of this cohort study, which included 1060 mother-child dyads from Project Viva, suggest that a proinflammatory diet in pregnancy is associated with greater adiposity accrual from childhood through adolescence. Furthermore, maternal depressive symptoms and social vulnerabilities were associated with greater susceptibility to the adipogenic effects of a proinflammatory diet in pregnancy. Future studies investigating the impact of dietary interventions or metabolic control during pregnancy on offspring adiposity outcomes should evaluate the role of different stress phenotypes. Concurrently addressing maternal diet quality and well-defined stress measures in studies evaluating developmental origins of child obesity will most comprehensively inform practice and policy.