Poor Women Often Gain Too Many Pregnancy Pounds

In a recently conducted study, researchers have found that young, low-income women, have excessive weight gain during pregnancy, and tend to retain at least 10 pounds of pregnancy weight up to a year after the birth of their child.  This excessive weight gain increases the chance of having a larger baby, resulting in a Caesarian delivery.  The inability to lose pregnancy weight raises these woman risks for high blood pressure and diabetes.  There is some belief that large newborns are destined to become overweight themselves throughout their lives. During their research it was found that around 50% of pregnant women were overweight or obese before becoming pregnant, and of those who were overweight before pregnancy nearly 50% were obese a year after delivery. The concern of the researchers is that this weight gain and retention was the result of one pregnancy, and since the women studied varied in age from 14-25 years-old, the possibility exist that they will have more children, and retain more weight with each subsequent pregnancy.

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I have a few theories as to the mysterious excessive weight gain during pregnancy of these young, low-income women, and I will share them with you.  First, many of these young women do not eat a well balanced diet before they become pregnant, whether they do not eat well because of a belief that eating will make them gain weight, or they are rationing their finances for things they consider more important.  Secondly, the lower-income women are eligible to receive food items through W.I.C and some even qualify for assistance through the state. This makes food more readily accessible.  Third, there are those women who are so nutritional ignorant that they misinterpret the saying “Eating for two”, taking it literally, and eating twice the portions required to provide nutritionally for both the mother and her child.     With America being the fattest nation in the world, I wonder if we are as obese as researchers claim or if the system of measurement that is currently being used is, are making it appear that way.  I myself question the current BMI scale, it calculates your BMI, or Body Mass Index based on your height and weight, with no measure of your body fat to muscle ratio.  The ability of measuring someone’s health by using a standardized chart astounds me, not everyone fits into a cookie cutter image in which to be measured.  Should someone who while weighting over their Ideal Body Weight or IBW, has less than 10% body fat be considered overweight? It is my belief that people should be rated on their overall fitness, not just, where their height and weight rate them on a chart.