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Babies are spoon‑fed a dollop of obesity

Quote:

From The Times
London, UK
28 May, 2017

Babies are spoon‑fed a dollop of obesity

Research suggests infants who are forced to eat are more likely to become overweight than those who feed themselves

Babies who are spoon-fed by their parents are more likely to end up overweight or even obese, a new book claims.

By contrast, those allowed to feed themselves a range of solid foods from the age of six months, a process known as baby-led weaning, are trim, healthy and adventurous eaters.

The author, Amy Brown, an expert in infant feeding and associate professor at Swansea University, says parents should let their babies feed themselves from the age of six months, eating the same as older siblings. There are, however, some key exceptions such as carrot sticks, apple slices, grapes or cherry tomatoes, which could stick in a baby’s throat.

She admitted that letting babies feed themselves could be messy, but this was part of the learning process. “Kids need to learn about food. They need to find out, ‘What happens if I squash this or drop it on the floor?’”

The book, Why Starting Solids Matters, published next week, includes research papers, including a study of 300 babies in the UK that shows that more than twice as many babies spoon-fed from the age of six months were overweight by the time they were toddlers compared with babies allowed to feed themselves from an array of “finger foods”.

Only 8% who fed themselves solid foods were overweight by the time they were aged two compared with 19% in the spoon-fed sample group. The average difference in weight was 1kg.

The book says babies allowed to feed themselves stopped eating when they were full and were therefore less likely to overeat. The research findings were independent of other factors such as birth weight, weaning age, breastfeeding and the mother’s background.

Brown adds that parents who want to spoon-feed children should be careful not to force them to finish a jar of food. “Let them eat as little as they want. A jar of baby food is too big for what a little baby needs. When you are waving the spoon around and saying ‘Here comes the big aeroplane — let’s finish it’, if they clamp their mouth shut, forget about it. They will not starve.”

NHS weaning guidelines say babies should be offered soft finger foods that they can self-feed alongside spoon-fed purees from six months old.

Elizabeth Carter, a mother of two from Scunthorpe, said her daughter, Catherine, 2, started feeding herself solid food from the age of six months. Her second daughter, Annie, who is eight months, is already tackling meat and potatoes.

The changing way we feed infants

1960s Dr Benjamin Spock recommends letting babies feed themselves from as young an age as possible. Urges parents to trust themselves, and think: “You know more than you think you do”

1970s With the advent of commercial baby foods, babies are spoon-fed from jars from four months or even younger

2000 The Department of Health recommends a mixture of purees and finger foods for babies from the age of six months

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/...brown-g8k2qmwpr

As a babysitter I was often instructed about how much the baby "should" eat... but I also saw how insistent the baby would be about what they wanted!

My older sister, born in 1950, was not given food until 6 months, which was the norm promoted by pediatricians then, and about the time infants naturally started to be interested in food. 5 years later, due to advertising and the processed food industry getting a few seats on the USDA nutrition panels, my mother and her friends were urged to stuff us babies with pablum. The mother who got her baby to eat at 2 or 3 months was held up as the ideal. Guess which bunch of kids ended up with weight problems?

Quote:

Originally Posted by deirdra

Haha. I was born in 1952, and was exclusively breast-fed by my mother for the first six months. When my sisters came along in 1956 and 1957 my mom had some health issues that prevented her from breastfeeding, so they both got formula and pablum also. Yet here I am the one with all sorts of weight and health problems and my two sisters are slender (both of them put together weigh less than I do!) and are in good health.

What horrifies me now is the constant feeding with juice, cereal, fruit, sugared yogurt, and the like. They don't give them meat unless it is heavily breaded to disguise the meatness. And so much "health food" soy based snacks and things.

These poor kids.

The Paleo Parents of three boys found their asthma and behavior issues vanished when they fed them real food. Breastfeeding when Mom ate right was easier. The baby slept through the night, the oldest "problem child" won a citizenship award, the father ditched his ADHD meds and the mother started actually digesting her food instead of battling an array of allergic and digestive reactions.

It's an amazing story.

My biological kids were premies and they didn't eat until they were almost a year. I think I tried to give my oldest food so she'd sleep better, but she had the tongue thrusting reflex until she was about 11 months so it didn't go very well. :lol: But I'm a pretty relaxed parent and food was not something I ever wanted to fight over so I gave up pretty quickly and let my kids learn to feed themselves (unfortunately, that mostly meant Cheerios and those gross little hot dogs meant for babies).

My adopted kids on the other hand came from foster care and they were feeding themselves very early on. I remember one of my boys was drinking coffee (and that was probably the least worrisome of his habits) and eating any food or drink left on tables when he came to us at about a year of age.

I think this is the key:

Quote:

Brown adds that parents who want to spoon-feed children should be careful not to force them to finish a jar of food. “Let them eat as little as they want. A jar of baby food is too big for what a little baby needs. When you are waving the spoon around and saying ‘Here comes the big aeroplane — let’s finish it’, if they clamp their mouth shut, forget about it. They will not starve.”

I firmly believe emotional health trumps all things physical and so I very deliberately let our kids eat as much or as little as they wanted and there were times our adopted kids would gorge themselves until they got sick. Although that sounds awful, they desperately needed to understand that food will always be there for them. I used to give gentle reminders, "careful, you don't want to get sick" but never, ever did I (or do I) battle my kids over food.

I was born in '53 & my mother's doctor told her it was fine to breastfeed, but she should also give me homemade formula - basically sugar water. Because of that, she was unable to breastfeed for very long - and blamed herself for years.

While I fed my kids many wrong foods - I didn't know any better - at least they weren't forced to eat too much. It may be why they have fewer health problems related to food than I do.

A favorite memory of daughter feeding herself: We were getting ready to go somewhere & I was "encouraging" her to eat a little faster. She dropped some food on the floor, and when I knelt down to clean it up, she dumped the rest of the food on my head. Good communication for a pre-verbal child! :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by tess9132

I think that was very wise of you.

I did the same thing when I rescued starving cats. Let them eat as much as they wanted, even if they got fat. Within months of calming down, they would stop the gorging and become a good weight again.

From my own eating disorder, I know that if anyone tried to restrict my eating at that time I would have gone even more off the deep end than I did. Adding one survival trauma to another is just going to multiply the effects of both.