Women and Pregnancies as an Immediate Target against the Obesity Epidemic

People with obesity worldwide have become a major challenge in this 21st century with an apparent irresistible rise of this epidemic since the 1970’s. Nowadays, it is evaluated that obese people (
30 kg/m²) represent some one billion inhabitants (out of seven) on this planet. The author wishes to enlarge an important current debate among obstetricians trying to sensitize specialists of obesity/endocrinology/ nutrition, and make them aware of a possible very important debate: having a “normal shaped” baby (neither too small, nor too big, 10% of SGA, small for gestational age and 10% of LGA, large for gestational age), is possible by an optimal gestational weight gain (optGWG) during pregnancy. This is a simple- mathematical linear equation, y= ax+b (y being optimal gestational weight gain, optGWG, x being pre-pregnancy body mass index, ppBMI). Beginning with severe obesity (36 kg/m²), women should not gain weight during their pregnancy, while they should lose weight in higher BMIs (e.g., losing 6 kg for a 40 kg/m² morbid obese). This is predictable since the first trimester of pregnancy. This chapter concluded that besides actively counter balancing morbid effects of high BMIs in pregnancies (and, importantly for the future of mankind, by avoiding a lot of macrosomic and LGA newborns), should imply new habits in women’s future lives afterwards.