PARENTAL BODY-COMPOSITION AND INFANT ENERGY-EXPENDITURE

It has been suggested that infants born to overweight parents are at r isk of becoming overweight because of reduced total energy expenditure (TEE). We therefore examined the relationship between infant TEE and parental nutritional status as assessed by body mass index (BMI) in a large sample of healthy infants. TEE was measured by the doubly labele d water method in 124 infants at 12 wk of age. Sleeping metabolic rate (SMR) was measured by indirect calorimetry in 70 of these infants. In dexes of physical activity were calculated as TEE/SMR and TEE - SMR. N o aspect of infant energy expenditure was found to be related to paren tal BMI. Moreover, there was no difference between TEE of two subsets of infants born to parents with high and low BMIs. We therefore find n o evidence for parental body composition being associated with reduced infant energy expenditure at 12 wk of age.