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Feeding Babies With Formula Could Put Kids at Risk for Obesity
Filed under: In The News, Breast-Feeding, Research Reveals: Babies
A new study shows baby formula can lead to childhood obesity. Credit: Getty
If you're planning on feeding your baby infant formula rather than breast milk, first, get ready for an ugly debate with other new moms and random people who will be teeming with insults and accusations that you're "selfish and lazy."
A survey reported by ABC earlier this year showed the two camps are at serious odds when it comes to feeding your child.
But, brace yourself. The battle could get worse. A new study warns that formula puts kids on a path of obesity. The question now, the Los Angeles Times reports, is will this formula make my baby look fat?
The study, published online in the journal Pediatrics finds babies fed a particular kind of infant formula -- cow's milk -- gain more weight than other babies and continue to gain weight faster than their counterparts during the first seven-and-a-half months of life, Pediatrics says.
Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia explored whether babies would respond differently to formulas based on cow's milk (where proteins are intact) and those made with proteins that are pre-digested, which are easier for some babies to tolerate, the Times reports.
These formulas, known as protein hydrolysate formulas (or PHFs), have about 35 percent more protein than cow's milk formulas. They also have more free amino acids, the study says.
The study followed 56 moms who planned to feed their babies formula. The difference in the groups became apparent after two months, the newspaper reports. By then, the babies receiving cow's milk formula had significantly higher weight-per-length than the babies on PHF formula. By 3-and-a-half months, the cow's milk formula babies also had significantly higher weight-per-age than the PHF babies, whose weight (per length and per age) matched those of breast-fed babies, according to the Times.
What's more, even after the babies started eating solid food, the ones who were fed cow's milk continued to gain weight, according to the newspaper.
This has wider-spread implications, the Times reports, because the most popular formula on the market is cow's milk. Researchers say they will continue to explore the implications of the study.
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 2)
12-28-2010 @ 9:53PM
nancy said...Stop making women feel guilty about breastfeeding. My baby was a preemie and I was so sick I could not breast feed. I threw out all the info on breastfeeding and fed him formula. he turned out great. We ate veggies instead of french fries and spent lots of time outside. Obesity comes from poor eating and not much exercise so leave out this myth of breastfeeding. Thank you
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12-28-2010 @ 10:03PM
rob said...I don't know much about this issue but I do know that my Neice had to start feeding her child formula because she was losing weight when she was breast feeding her.
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12-28-2010 @ 10:04PM
Alicia said...You want to know what causes childhood obesity more than formula? Lazy parenting. Get your kids outside, cook healthy meals and stock the pantry with crackers and peanut butter instead of potato chips. If your kid's still chubby after that, they're built chubby and nothing will slim them down short of unhealthy extremist diets. Formula is irrelevant.
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12-28-2010 @ 10:27PM
Libby said...I bottle fed my first son, and breast fed the second. Both kids are healthy and neither one is even slightly overweight. One, in fact, just joined the Coast Guard this past month. So, definitely no weight or health issues for him. There are many factors that lead to obesity, genetics included, and I hardly think it's a good idea to go singling out infant formulas for a cause. The fact is, a baby's brain needs a certain amount of fats to develop the way it should, and I think it's kind of dangerous and irresponsible to report on formula in this way with no backing from multiple scientific studies. This could worry some parents into too closely monitoring how much formula their babies drink, and fail to realize that infants are hardwired to nurse (by breast or bottle, makes no difference) not only when they are hungry, but when they are in need of comfort also.
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12-28-2010 @ 10:33PM
Sammy said...I know one example doesn't disprove anything (the same for a study of 56), but I was breast fed and I'm a fat, lazy, useless, obese piece of shit. In fact, I don't think my parents were bad at all. They tried to get me to eat right, they tried to serve me healthy meals, and they tried to boot me outside to exercise. I would have none of it. I have only myself to blame, 100%. I hate all these studies coming out that try to blame other factors.
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12-28-2010 @ 11:03PM
Valeska said...My cousins were all breast-fed. My cousins are obese. They grew up on farms and worked in the fields. The study is nuts.
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12-28-2010 @ 11:16PM
leon said...Boy was I wrong. I thought fat kids was caused by too much junk food, internet and video games.
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12-28-2010 @ 11:27PM
Erin said...This is the most ridiculous article I have read recently. Do we really fund this outrageous research? I have a 9 yr old stepdaughter who was fed breastmilk for first year of her life and weighs more than myself and is considered obese. I have a 6 yr. old biological daughter that I only breastfed for 6 weeks because she was lactose intolerant and is average weight (no where near obese). Just like how they tell parents that children who are breastfed end up being more intelligent and go to college. All 3 of my parents' children were formula fed and we all finished college (2 of us Engineers and on a CPA). And, guess what, we're skinny. LOL
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1-08-2011 @ 3:12PM
ken said...THE REASON KIDS ARE OBESE. THERE ARE ONLY (2) REASONS.
1. THEY ARE GENETICALLY GIVEN A DISEASE.
2. THEY ALL EAT AT TIMES JUST BEFORE BED AND THEY CAN NOT DIGEST THE FOOD IN THEIR BODIES. THEIR NON DIGESTED FOOD FLOCCULATES INTO THE FAT CELLS OF THE BODY!
Feed your kids any time you wish, just give them 4 hours to digest!
END OF STORY
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12-29-2010 @ 1:04AM
rose said...The whole situation of obesity does not have a single answer to it. People need to look at all the factors before making sweeping decisions that formula is bad. Come on everyone, act like adults.
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12-29-2010 @ 1:31AM
pete said...It has nothing to do with hormones in the food, they have been there for 30 -40 years. fact is, these hormones become denatured(essentially impossible to do any good or harm to consumer) Growth hormones are released in childrens bodies when they eat too many calories. Yeah mom if you 5'5 you should weigh 110. The only hormones that effect your children are thier own(unless hgh or other stable hormones are introduced) Otherwise, cooked food has NO effect. Your fat ass child does.
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12-29-2010 @ 5:45AM
Gina said...Pete, I agree with you 99%. As a woman who is 5"1, 110lbs and obviously small-framed, I have to disagree with your weight/height ratio. I wear a petite size 6 and that's hardly chubby. 5"5 & 110 lbs. sounds a bit on the skinny side to me, especially if the woman is slightly bigger-boned or has anything beyond a B cup.
12-29-2010 @ 12:24PM
Alicia said...Actually, the ideal weight range for a woman who is 5'5 is between 115 and 150 pounds. 110 is underweight, which can be just as unhealthy as overweight. However, we live in a society that values "thin" more than "healthy" so no one likes to say that being underweight will kill you faster than being overweight will.
12-29-2010 @ 2:18AM
Linda said...Did they consider milk without hormones and antibiotics in the study? Probably not. This is a very incomplete study.
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12-29-2010 @ 2:40AM
Lauren said...Is it just me or do most of these studies seem to favor/promote breastfed babies? Studies are easy to tweak to fit agendas.
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12-29-2010 @ 3:03AM
Dave said...My two year old was adopted and formula fed, which gave me the opportunity to bond and equally share the feedings. Kudos to women who breast feed, but the trend towards demonizing those who formula feed has to stop, especially when these zealots don't consider health, work, or other circumstances which make breast feeding impossible
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12-29-2010 @ 5:02AM
Gina said...Oh lets blame the fat kids on formula now. I fed my daughter formula exclusively. At 25, she still wears a petite size 2. At 45, I still wear a size 6 and I was given formula as well. Let's call it what it is: Eat a proper diet, turn off the video games and get off your duffs!
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12-29-2010 @ 5:48AM
danny said...Some people are just destined to be fat useless disgusting human beings. Its just a fact of life. Nothing to study,nothing to fix,nothing to gain. Thank goodness I am a thin useful handsome model of a human being.
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12-29-2010 @ 12:29PM
Alicia said...Unless someone has deemed Paris Hilton useful while I wasn't looking, your weight has nothing to do with how useful you are. If you're lazy, unmotivated and don't give a rat's ass about anyone but yourself, you're useless, but those character traits can belong to both fat and thin people.
12-30-2010 @ 10:07PM
CLM said...I'm sorry, but this is BS of the highest order. I was born with a cleft lip and palate, which made breast-feeding impossible. I was fed formula with a dropper every 2 hours for the first six months of my life. I am, to this day, by far the thinnest member of my family.
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