By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Women who drink when they are pregnant risk having a child with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder – problems that can include damage to the brain and nervous system, and, one study finds, overweight.
At the University of Minnesota, researcher Jeff Wozniak saw this in data on 446 children with FAS. Wozniak found greater likelihood of overweight or obesity in some:
“Those with partial FAS were at a particularly high risk for obesity and overweight during the adolescent years.”
Wozniak advises parents of children with partial FAS to do things like controlling their kids’ portion sizes and snacking.
The study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experiment al Research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.