Figure 1. Maternal obesity and the putative impact of altered ovarian leptin signalling on oocyte growth and long-term effects for embryo development and offspring health. With the increase in fat stores in the body, leptin is produced in large amounts leading to hyperleptinemia and subsequent leptin resistance in the ovary. Local perturbations in leptin signalling may lead to changes in oocyte metabolic profile and mitochondrial function, which may critically affect oocyte quality (Ge et al., 2012), affecting the oocyte metabolic and epigenetic legacy which, in turn, may affect early reprogramming events in the embryo and offspring susceptibility to disease in adulthood. Created with BioRender.com.