Inheriting Bad Eating Habits

During pregnancy, hormones can induce irresistible food cravings, including cravings for unhealthful foods such as ice cream and French fries. But it turns out that it's not just the mom who may be developing a junk food habit - the fetus could be getting hooked on junk, too. When researchers at the Royal Veterinary College in the U.K. fed pregnant rats junk treats instead of healthful rat chow, the babies were born craving the bad stuff, gorging twice the calories as the other rats. It appears that brain receptors can associate junk food with pleasure even in the womb, so babies whose mothers ate such food during pregnancy are born with a brain primed for junk food addiction, researcher Neil Strickland tells BBC News. "Future mothers should be aware," Strickland says, "that pregnancy and lactation are not the time to overindulge on fatty and sugary treats on the assumption that they are 'eating for two'."