It is absolutely nuts to "diet" while pregnant -- yet many American women do, as the above excerpt notes.
If more women knew that staying skinny and chic while pregnant would doom their children to obesity, what would they do?
I'm afraid that many, given the choice, would choose not to have the child at all.
It’s not that women are dieting during pregnancy because of vanity. They come under a LOT of pressure from their doctors to keep the weight gain to under 35 pounds. Sometimes a husband puts pressure on too, as he might be afraid he’s going to be losing his sexy wife forever.
When you consider that a pregnant woman is carrying around 7 pounds of baby, an additional two pounds in each breast, a large uterus, the placenta and products of conception, and a lot of water weight, that 35-pound gain can include very little fat. It’s darned hard keeping the weight off, especially when nature programs us to be voracious during pregnancy. Of course some women mistakenly turn to any diet that will help them eat without putting on a ton of weight.