Maternal metabolic and nutritional determinants of child neurocognitive development and factors influencing child’s eating behaviour

Gestational environmental factors may program the fetus’ neurocognitive development and can have long-term impacts on a child’s health. A variety of studies have focused on the associations between individual nutrients and child neurodevelopment, and very little attention has been paid to the role of the overall diet. The objective of this doctoral thesis is to evaluate the impact of dietary patterns during pregnancy, maternal adiposity, and gestational diabetes mellitus on child neurodevelopment. Another aim of this thesis is to assess the extent to which a mother’s perceptions of child feeding impact on childhood obesity.