You Are What Your Mother Ate: Eat Well for Healthy Kids

I always thought you looked kinda like a pickle with peanut butter. Anyway, so the saying goes—you are what you eat—which is supposed to make you feel guilty when downing that triple cheeseburger with a side of donuts and frogs legs. Although, what's so wrong with being a cheeseburger?

But, recent research says—you are what your mother ate—which might make you hate her even more than you do when she's nagging you about your career choices. The idea is: a mother's bad eating habits during pregnancy are linked to a person's predisposition to develop type 2 diabetes, a glucose metabolism disease and a contributing factor to heart disease and cancer.

Whoa. It turns out that diet can actually modify the way your genes are expressed in cells all over your body. Alcohol, for example, adds an extra chemical onto DNA strands which damages the cell's ability to function, especially in the liver. During the time you spend in your mother's womb, you are even more susceptible to the affects of food on your genes. Poor nutrition (not enough protein and vitamins from veggies) stunts gene Hnf4a which helps the pancreas develop early in life and aids with the production of insulin later in life. So, eat good and your kids will turn out healthier. No brainer.

Mayo Clinic recommends 71 grams of protein a day (6 oz of chicked and 1 cup cottage cheese will do it), 27 milligrams iron (spinich, turkey, cereal), 1,000 micrograms folate and folic acid (spinich, cereal, beans, and asparagus), 1,000 milligrams calcium (yogurt, milk, fortified juice), and not too many sweets or saturated fats. And, no cocktails, cigarettes, or anything that will make you hallucinate for two.

SOURCE Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences