The Realistic Skinny on Moms, Pregnancy and Weight Gain

With all the nutty fads and misguided emphases that pop culture can inflict on American society, there’s a harmful health issue that our celebrity-obsessed nation needs to let go of: Idolizing stars who appear to instantly shed every ounce of pregnancy weight gain immediately after giving birth, while ignoring most real women’s struggles with pre- and post-partum pounds.

Supermodel Heidi Klum, for example, won kudos in the star-struck press for walking the Victoria’s Secret runway just weeks after delivering her second child and again after her fourth. Entertainer Beyoncé -- back at fighting weight -- was dubbed People’s “Most Beautiful Woman” four months after having her first child. And on its website, Us magazine boasts a gallery full of “Jaw-dropping post baby bods,” from Celine Dion to Penelope Cruz.

Sure, these miraculous transformations are great for magazine sales. But they also may distort expectations of regular women, who do not have around-the-clock childcare, housekeepers, personal trainers and people to prepare their meals. Moreover, the mania for “Mom-shells” -- women who look like dynamite swiftly after pregnancy and delivery -- obscures real concerns. Retaining pregnancy weight is a significant problem that -- more crucial than how a mom looks in a bikini -- contributes to the obesity epidemic among both women and children in our country. Instead, we need focus more on supporting real moms with this challenge.

Health care practitioners may not discuss weight management sufficiently with pregnant patients. The media’s constant displays of photos of size 2 celebrity moms doesn’t help, either. And if there's anywhere these glossy images make women feel extra pressure, it's got to be right here in looks-obsessed Los Angeles.

“The expectation of getting back into your skinny jeans within weeks of delivery is ludicrous,” says Adrienne Youdim, MD, medical director of the Center for Weight Loss at my institution. “At the same time,” she notes, “childbearing is a common period when young women are vulnerable to gaining weight that is never lost.”

How Much Is Enough?

Many factors influence post-partum weight loss, including genetics, age, pre-pregnancy weight, lifestyle, stress and post-partum depression. But the most consistent predictor is the amount of weight gained during the nine months of gestation. Clearly, the more you must lose, the harder it is.

And yet, many women -- upwards of 50 percent by some accounts -- do over-gain. For the one in five who already are obese when they become pregnant, that figure is even higher. In a major study of more than 1,600 obese women, three in four gained excess weight, and, on average, still carried 40 percent of that weight a year after giving birth.