The article below is but one of many reports that have cited breastfeeding as the best start in the fight against obesity. In Singapore, the obesity rate was 10.8% in 2010.
Taking it into simple perspective, if you throw a stone into a crowd of people at Orchard Road, for instance, you should be able to hit 1 person in a group of 10 who would very likely be considered obese. You would hit quite a few people who are considered obese, kids and adults alike. The results were similar to those conducted by the Ministry of Education on our students.
Frankly, this would really not be so much a clear cut case of formula versus breastfeeding. Although having said that, exclusively breastfed babies who are fed on demand at the breast, stop feeding on their own when they are full. Whereas it is all too common to hear comments that "my baby takes an hour to finish his/her bottle". We need to ask ourselves why. Whether it is expressed breast milk or formula, if your baby takes longer than 15 minutes or so to finish a bottle, it's likely too much milk.
Therefore, if a baby takes an hour to finish a bottle, would it not be a logical conclusion that perhaps we are forcing baby to take in more than (s)he needs? If a baby is overfed from infancy, it is very likely that we as parents can unwittingly create big appetites in our children which need to be filled as they grow.
It is natural for babies to suck - teat, bottle or otherwise. So if you have a bottle of milk, your baby is likely to suck till it's all gone. Yet, it might not be that your baby was actually that hungry but that it was easy to drink it all up! A baby at the breast is less likely to overfeed because it is harder work to suckle at the breast and therefore when the baby is full, (s)he is likely to come off the breast naturally, thereby limiting the quantity taken.
It is natural for us to be concerned with numbers. We are Singaporeans! Yet, it might work to our detriment, and baby's, to be overly watchful over numbers this early.
Let us illustrate simply because we see it in hospitals all the time.
A newborn baby's stomach is the size of a big pea. Yet, we are feeding a newborn a 30ml bottle of infant formula. Just picture that. Whereas a breastfeeding mom only produces about 1 teaspoon of colostrum in the initial few days, per feeding.
And now we leave you the questions :
Which do you think is more appropriate for the newborn? Could Nature be wrong?
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LONDON, Sept. 30 2010 (UPI) --
Bottle feeding infants can put them on the path to a life of heart disease and obesity, a study by British researchers says.
The study by the Institute of Child Health in London says the use of baby formula can cause health problems in later life as children develop unnaturally large appetites, The Guardian reported Thursday.
Overfeeding in infancy causes at least a fifth of adult obesity cases, Professor Atul Singhal from the MRC Childhood Nutrition Research Center says.
Breastfed babies limit their own intake of milk because they have to work hard to get it, Singhal said, whereas bottle-fed babies lie back and take in what they are given.
The danger, Singhal says, is that in being offered more than they need they are building up an appetite for the future.
"When they are exposed to high-protein, high-fat foods, they are more likely to become obese," he says.
"In public-health terms, it supports the case in the general population for breastfeeding -- as it is harder to overfeed a breastfed baby," Singhal says.
© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
