Diet-induced obesity could have detrimental effects on adults and their progeny. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a high-energy diet on both F1 mice body weight and tissue/organ weight and F2 offspring growth. A simple murine model for obesity was developed using a high-energy diet and mice reared in litters of five or ten, from 30 dams receiving a cafeteria diet of either commercial chow (low energy), or a mixture of commercial chow, chocolate (50% cacao), and salty peanuts (high energy). This diet continued from mating until weaning, when the pups were allocated according to sex into eight groups based on maternal diet, litter size, and post-weaning diet. On day 74, the males were slaughtered, and the females were bred then slaughtered after lactation. As a result, the high-energy maternal diet increased the F1 offspring growth during lactation, while the high-energy post-weaning diet increased the F1 adult body weight and tissue/organ weight. The high-energy maternal diet could negatively affect the onset of the F1 but not the maintenance of breastfeeding of F1 and F2 offspring. For F2 offspring growth, the high energy overlapped the low-energy post-weaning diet, due to problems of gaining weight during lactation.
Keywords: breastfeeding; high-energy diet; litter size; maternal diet; post-weaning diet.