Women who consume a high-fat diet while pregnant could increase the risk of obesity and diabetes in their babies, according to findings presented at the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior meeting.

In an effort to discover the effects of a diet consisting of high fat foods during pregnancy, researchers fed a low-fat or high-fat diet to rats before giving birth. After the pups were born, the team had them nurse with a different rat that ate the same or opposite dietary regimen as their mothers.

The results of the study showed that despite which diet the pregnant rats had eaten, the pups who nursed with rats that ate the high-fat diet were categorized as obese within a few weeks. Also, the investigators discovered that in addition to obesity, the pups also developed the early signs of diabetes.

Bo Sun, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, stated that these results suggest that “high-fat diet intake by nursing mothers may be more critical to the later development of obesity and diabetes in their offspring than high fat feeding during pregnancy.”

In addition to increasing the risk of obesity and diabetes, a study conducted at the Children’s Mercy Hospital in Missouri showed that excess weight during pregnancy also increased the inftants’ ponderal index, mean that the baby’s body is composed mostly of fat.