These findings are important given the high prevalence of overweight and obesity
worldwide, and suggest that preventing women of reproductive age from becoming overweight or
obese is important to the health of their
children.
More than 1.4 billion adults, 150 million school - aged
children, and 43 million preschool
children are estimated to be overweight or
obese worldwide (1 ⇓ — 3), substantially raising risk for cardiovascular diseases (4) hyperlipidemia (5), diabetes (5, 6), osteoarthritis (6), sleep apnea (7), depression (8), and cancer (9).