The American journal of clinical nutrition
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It has been suggested that infants born to overweight parents are at risk 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 labeled water method in 124 infants at 12 wk of age. ⋯ No aspect of infant energy expenditure was found to be related to parental BMI. Moreover, there was no difference between TEE of two subsets of infants born to parents with high and low BMIs. We therefore find no evidence for parental body composition being associated with reduced infant energy expenditure at 12 wk of age.