in 2015, obesity theorist edward archer published "the childhood obesity epidemic as a result of nongenetic evolution: the maternal resources hypothesis" and a series of works on maternal effects in human obesity and health. in this body of work, archer argued that accumulative maternal effects via the non-genetic evolution of matrilineal nutrient metabolism is responsible for the increased global prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus type 2. archer posited that decrements in maternal metabolic control altered fetal pancreatic beta cell, adipocyte (fat cell) and myocyte (muscle cell) development thereby inducing an enduring competitive advantage of adipocytes in the acquisition and sequestering on nutrient energy.