(P27-092-25) The Impact of Diet Quality on Gestational Weight Gain Across Trimesters

Objectives: We wanted to investigate the impact of diet quality on gestational weight gain during pregnancy.

Methods: This is a cohort study consisting of 224 pregnant women enrolled in the GLOWING study at the Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, located in Little Rock, Arkansas. Participants diets' were tracked using 3-day food records and anthropometric measurements such as body weight were taken at each visit. Diet quality was measured using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-2015 scoring guidelines. Gestational Weight Gain was classified as either inadequate or excessive based on the 2009 Institute of Medicine guidelines for Gestational Weight Gain. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine the association between diet quality and GWG, along with adjusting for covariates such as maternal age, education, ethnicity, marital status, and pre-pregnancy BMI.

Results: The findings indicate that overall diet quality was not significantly associated with excessive or inadequate GWG in any of the three trimesters. In T1, the odds ratios for the association between HEI and excessive (OR = 1.00, p = 0.864) and inadequate GWG (OR = 1.04, p = 0.116) were not significant. Similar results were shown in T2 for excessive (OR = 0.99, p = 0.464) and inadequate GWG (OR = 1.03, p = 0.257). This trend continued in T3, with odds ratios for excessive (OR = 1.01, p = 0.775) and inadequate GWG (OR = 1.00, p = 0.839). BMI was shown to be significantly associated with excessive GWG, with higher BMI increasing the chances of excessive GWG in T1 (OR = 1.13, p = 0.002), T2 (OR = 1.13, p = 0.002), and T3 (OR = 1.13, p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Although there was no significant association found between diet quality and GWG, these findings are important because they show that there's other factors outside of diet quality that can have an influence on GWG.

Funding Sources: Penn State College of Human Health and Development Research Grant