Is Prolonged Bottle Feeding Harming Your Child?
Is bottle-feeding your child preparing them for obesity?
Researchers may be coming to that conclusion. In a paper published in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers analyzed existing data on 6,750 American children born in 2001 to study the correlation between prolonged bottle use and obesity.
Rachel Gooze, from the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University in Philadelphia, explained to The Telegraph: "A 24 month-old girl of average weight and height who is put to bed with an 8 oz. bottle of whole milk would receive approximately 12 percent of her daily calorific needs from that bottle."
Many parents continue to feed milk or toddler formula to their children during the day or at bedtime after they have moved on to solid food after 6 months of age.
As many as 22 percent of children either used a bottle of milk “as their primary drink container” or “were put to bed with a calorie-containing bottle”. Twenty-three percent of this group were classified obese between the ages of 5 and 6 years of age.
Temple University’s Dr. Robert Whitaker said, “Children who were still using a bottle at 24 months were approximately 30 percent more likely to be obese at 5 and a half years, even after accounting for other factors such as mother’s weight, the child’s birth weight and feeding practices during infancy.”
The authors of the study believe that, “drinking from a bottle beyond infancy may contribute to obesity by encouraging the child to consume too many calories”.
Gooze notes that weaning children from the bottle by the time they are 1 year of age will not cause the child harm and may well prevent future health issues. It is encouraged that parents consult their pediatricians to find acceptable solutions for stopping bottle use at the child’s first birthday.
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