Delaying solids for baby = thinner adults
There's nothing better than baby fat on a baby. Chubby cheeks, thighs, toes, finger tips -- just about everything on baby is better when it's chunky. It's not cute on an older child or adult. Just the opposite. Plus it's unhealthy. A new study says we might want to delay solid food for baby because our children may be thinner as adults.
"The later you introduce complementary feeding to an infant, within the range of 2 to 6 months, the smaller is the risk that the infant will be overweight as adult," Dr. Kim Fleischer Michaelson of the University of Copenhagen, one of the researchers of the study, told Reuters Health. Read the full article on (solid foods and thinner adults here).
The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests women breastfeed exclusively until at least six months, but many moms start adding cereal and other solids before then, before four to six months or even sooner.
Dr. Michaelson measured the body mass of 5,000 men and women and examined how their mothers fed them as infants.
According to Reuters:
"Half of the study participants were breastfed for at least two and a half months, while half started eating solid food at three and a half months of age or later. Seventeen percent of the babies started spoon feeding before two months of age, while 46 percent didn't start until they were four months old or later.
"At age one, babies who were breastfed for longer had lower body mass indexes (BMIs). However, there was no association between duration of nursing and BMI in later childhood, adolescence or adulthood."
What age did you start giving solid food to your baby?
Written by Cynthia Dermody for Baby Buzz in CafeMom Parenting
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