Dietary proteins during perinatal period are an important nutritional factor for later life metabolic health and disease risk (Michaelsen et al, 2012). The aim of this study is to determine the effect of maternal high-protein (HP) diet during gestation or lactation on offspring metabolic response to a western diet challenge after weaning. Three groups of Wistar rat dams received either control diet (20% proteins) during gestation and lactation (C group), HP diet (55% proteins) during gestation (HPgest group), or HP diet during lactation (HPlact group). From weaning until the age of 10 weeks, female pups were fed either control or western (W) diet. When compared to C and HPlact pups, HPgest pups have less visceral adipose tissue (AT) at weaning (p=0.02) but have at 10 weeks-old a higher free fatty acids plasma concentration (p=0.04), more subcutaneous AT (p=0.02) and more adipocytes (p=0.007). In addition, when compared to C pups and to HPlact pups, HPgest pups fed W diet have a higher weight gain (gestation diet*diet after weaning*time effect: p<0.0001), an increased food intake (gestation diet*diet after weaning effect: p=0.01) and a higher adiposity at 10 weeks (gestation diet*diet after weaning effect: p=0.006 in absolute weight and p=0.02 in % body weight). These results show that maternal HP diet during gestation, but not lactation, leads to a higher sensitivity of female pups to obesity. The programming effect induced by HP diet during gestation promotes an enhanced differentiation and/or proliferation of adipocytes, thus increases the capacity of pups to store fat.