The question is, does breastfeeding protect the child from obesity and subsequent health issues later in life?
Several research studies have shown that growth during the first two years of a child's life has the potential to affect the development of many chronic diseases.
It's now known that obese children have a higher risk of becoming obese adults than children who were never overweight, and prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other diseases are related to obesity.
To find out whether there was a correlation between breastfeeding and disease, a study of 9357 German nationality children between the ages of 5 and 6 was carried out. *
It was found that children who had never been breast fed were almost twice as likely to become obese.
It transpired that the longer the baby was breastfed, the less likely it was that the child would become obese by the age of 5 or 6.
After adjusting for potential factors not related to breastfeeding, it was found that the protective effect of breast feeding was not accounted for by differences in social class or lifestyle.
The researchers concluded that in industrialised nations promoting prolonged breast feeding may help to decrease the prevalence of obesity in children.
And, especially as children who are obese are more likely to become obese adults, the preventative measures of breastfeeding may eventually result in a reduction in diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other obesity-related diseases.
*In this study, overweight was defined as body mass index above the 90th centile, and obesity was defined as body mass index above the 97th centile of all the children who took part.
This article was written by Sonja VanderDol, Nutritional Therapist and founder of http://www.blueandgreenalgae.com where you can find many more articles like this. You can also sign up for the free newsletters.
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