Spoon feed babies are more likely to become obese

[clairikins]

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2535141/Spoon-fed-babies-likely-overweight-bodies-dont-recognise-full.html

I may have to show this to my HV

Wheat as it's full of starch = sugar also raises your insulin levels! which in turn fat. It's actually really bad for you.

It's not the first time I have heard people say eeeeeeeeeewwwww puréed food.

It's common sense to me. Fruit puréed is lovely. Apple & cinnamon, mashed banana and Mango etc.

My mother used to fry up all the leftover Sunday lunch in a pan the next day and it was absolutely lovely.

Yet some foods are not going to work that way, a salad, or a puréed Gregg's sausage roll, as an example.

I don't get this attitude.

The standard NHS advice now is to wean at around 6 weeks and incorporate mashed, whole and chopped food. Which is really exactly as an adult eats.

I have yet to see with my own eyes these people who are force feeding their children.

Portion control I think can be an issue and watched a programme a while back asking a class of parents to select a portion of food for 6 and 7 year olds and they all put out a lot more food than needed.

Spoon feeding does not make someone obese. Force feeding is what overrides the "feeling full" sensation.

It's about time people realised that a spoon does not equate to forcing a child to eat.

6 MONTHS

before I am hung drawn and quartered

By the way, the idea that Canola or rapeseed oil is bad for you is utter bollocks gleaned from scaremongering internet chain letter.

Exactly SoupDragon I don't feel full till I'm absolutely stuffed because of being forced to eat everything as a child. I didn't want my DC to have the same issues with food/weight that I have. I wanted them to be able to regulate their own food intake.

Most people I know in real life force their DC to eat, whether it's by making them eat everything on their plate or by constantly giving them food in the hope that they'll eat it or by cajoling or bribing them.

enb76 I don't know what chain letter your talking about but I disagree .

Ds4 is 11 months and still isnt keen on finger foods, he will eat a little bit then an hour later hes hungry again.

So he has pureed food. Op what would ypu do if your child didnt like finger food but was hungry?

A child is likely to be obese if they are fed too much crap, dont walk anywhere or if portion sizes are too big.

A bit of pureed veg on a spoon never made anyone fat.

I'm lower class. All mine have been given finger foods alongside puréed. None are overweight. In fact DS1 was weaned on jars and veg sticks (I was 20. I hadn't a clue you could make your own baby food ) and he's now very underweight.

I don't go in for clearing plates. They eat until they don't want anymore and it's taken away. They can snack (they're grazers) but I don't limit sugar or anything.

All are healthy. One was breastfed (the heaviest child) and all are happy.

It's not how you feed them. It's the attitudes you give off about food.

Yes SD re spoon feeding, also a bottle doesnt equate to force feeding either

TinkerTaylor1, I think that enb76 was referring to unsubstantiated myths about rapeseed oil forwarded by people via email or social networking sites. The website Urban Legends has an example that it analyses for fact content.

I would be interested to know where your information about rapeseed oil has come from if not from these (or similar) sources - I use it for cooking for my DS, and would like to know if there are serious health implications.

Those of you who are being critical - have you read the actual paper or are you going on how the tabloids sensationalised it? Because they tell two very different stories.

If you read the paper it does not say spoon feeding makes babies obese or that its the only factor over riding all others

I think the issue of whether spoon fed or BLW is more likely to cause obesity is much like the research about whether FF or BF is more likely to cause obesity. That is, if you have two children that were raised in exactly the same way, the one that is spoon fed and formula fed is more predisposed to obesity than the baby led, breast fed baby.

Of course, no two children, even in the same family are ever raised the same way and I think the family's attitude to food and eating throughout their childhood has a much bigger impact on whether a child has problems with weight (either under or over) later in life than how they were fed when they were a baby.

In the grand scheme of things, whether you use baby led weaning or spoon fed weaning or both doesn't really make much of a difference to how you child turns out.

The Dr who did this study did a web chat yesterday.

She was keen to point out that the media came up with that headline not her. What the study found, with controlled groups to make it fair, was babies weaned through blw are more likely to have better appetite control as toddlers in comparison to traditionally weaned babies.

Make of that what you will but read through the headlines.

coffeeistheanswer : I don't see how one can be so clear cut about defining two weaning styles outside of the study. Weaning in our house was a couple of weeks of a very random (but small) amount of puree then a bit of a free for all. I wasn't in any way following a method of weaning and that's why I point out that "BLWeaners" are mistaken to put me and my child in a category I don't really recognise, that of "spoonfeederweaners".

The idea that there is a homogenous group of traditionally weaned babies seems flawed to me.

The doctor said that herself funny so she classed blw as children who were spoonfed 10% or less by their parents. This was to take into account ill children, being out somewhere where they didn't want to make a mess etc. Anything else was considered traditional.

Of course not all traditional weaners do it the same neither do blw but she's reporting her findings after doing a controlled study. That blw babies were better at self regulating their portion control.

It wasn't a criticism on traditional weaning just a factual observation based on her study.

It just seems rather woolly.

Did she distinguish between two camps I observed in pre BLW days so both using "traditional weaning" : those who, to my mind, pester children to eat, going to great lengths to get a bit more food in and those who accept the child's signals of turning away and swiping the spoon and move on?

Not as far as I'm aware but I guess it could be argued that with pureeing, like smoothies, you're using a greater quantity of food than if you were just eating it solid. It would also be eaten quicker.

She did note that in the control groups The traditional weaners were more like to encourage their baby to eat a bit more.

My theory for what it's worth (It's a chat forum so what the hell!) :

I didn't and don't push volume of food on my children. I was the same at the weaning stage as I was in no rush. I am the sort who reads books for the latest research/ ideas and I probably would have decided |I was doing BLW! The reality for my children would have been fewer purees for a few weeks and I don't suppose there would have been a discernible difference in the end weights. This is what I think has happened. One tranche of people have been moved out of the normal food end of "traditional weaning" and onto "BLW". The outcomes for the children will remain the same.

The world didn't begin with this generation . Once upon a time; all babies were weaned by spoon feeding. There were still fat and thin people, and there always will be.

My three are all past the weaning stage. I had literally never heard of BLW until I joined this site. I used a spoon - sue me. DD started solids at 13 weeks because it was 4 months when she was a baby and she was more than ready.

They started feeding themselves (finger foods or using the spoon) when they were ready too. Never had any problems with them over eating or obesity.

Daily Mail, ffs.

My son never allowed me to spoonfeed him. I didn't puree anything but Weetabix, yoghurt etc he used the spoon himself and got the hang of it very quickly (I have a video on my phone of him doing it at 7 months). It was just what suited him. If he had wanted to be spoonfed I would have done it - different approaches will work for different babies. It was pretty messy but that didn't really bother me. Whichever approach I went for, I wouldn't force feed and I do restrain myself from pushing him to eat more even though some days he might seem to want virtually nothing. Doing blw in no way prevented fussy eating issues for us, he ate brilliantly until age 2 and then became incredibly fussy. At 3 he is just starting to try new things sometimes, including the things he ate enthusiastically (like vegetables!) when weaning but has refused to touch for the past year or so. I liked blw but I am not evangelical about it and don't think it solves all issues. I don't think there is anything wrong with puree and spoons either.

However, I see my dad with my ds and how desperate he is to press food on him. He was hopeful that we would wean him at 3 months and since he has started eating, meals with my dad have had a running commentary encouraging him to have a bit more, a bit more, a bit more. He expresses disappointment if ds doesn't eat much and always, without fail, produces pudding and takes great pleasure in seeing ds eat as much of it as he likes (which is generally loads!). I can see why I have always been overweight if he had the same attitude with me and it wouldn't have made any difference whether it was spoonfeeding or blw. That said, neither of my sisters struggle with their weight at all so I don't think it's that clear cut.

Purees is really only a very recent invention. If you look at the history of weaning, purees were really a great advertising hook for busy mothers either pre or post war. I can't honestly remember off the top of my head. The advertising industry boomed and lots of convenience products became part of everyday living.

Before that it was common to wean your children later. Again, it's a while since I read up on this but I believe it was common in the victorian times and earlier to wait until 8/9 months. Some babies who weren't thought to be thriving were weaned earlier on broths.

It really wouldn't have been possible to puree foods. Blenders are also a fairly recent invention.

I really don't think it's a criticism of traditional weaning. I think it's a study that had come about as we now are asociety for whatever reasons, that have much higher cases of obesity and bowel diseases than ever before. It's not anyones fault, it's just good to reflect and examine scientifically to see if things can be improved for the next generation.

Science is amazing! sorry that was my inner geek getting over excited