Don't Feed Your Baby Solid Foods Just Yet!

at 2:51 PM

Babies who are younger than four months old should not be fed solid food, a study by Harvard researchers has found.  These babies have a higher risk of becoming obese by age 3 than those starting later.  These studies are significant because  being overweight as a child increases the likelihood of being overweight as an adult.  The study which was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.  This study also supports the one by American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendation to begin solid foods when infants are between 4 and 6 months old.  

Data from the CDC show that only one third of all women still breastfeed their babies by the time they are 3 months old.  The solid-food study involved almost 900 children in which researchers collected data from  questionnaires that asked mothers about the timing of the first introduction of 10 solid foods like cereal, vegetables, fruit, peanut butter, etc.  Mothers were also asked about breast-feeding and formula feeding. 

The results showed that formula-fed babies who were given solid food before 4 months had a 6 fold increase in the risk of becoming obese at age 3 compared with formula-fed babies introduced to solid food between 4 and 5 months.  Researchers also found that 7% of breast-fed babies were considered obese by age 3 compared with 13% of formula-fed babies.