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Subscribe to RSSOh dear Lord. People are actually putting their babies on diets.
ABC has this alarming story about parents worrying their babies are too fat, and even bragging about their “thin” babies.
Yes, childhood obesity is a problem, and it’s understandable that parents may want to spare their children the weight problems they have struggled with over the years. But babies are SUPPOSED to be fat! What’s more adorable than chubby cheeks and chunky baby thighs?
On the extreme end, a couple in Seattle was accused of starving their baby daughter and putting laxatives in her bottle to prevent her from getting fat. According to court documents, when the baby gained weight in foster care, the mother exclaimed, “Oh my God, she’s fat” and “I have a fat baby.”
And we wonder why eating disorders are rising sharply among kids younger than 12?
For the record, I was a fat baby, and I turned out to be a skinny kid and healthy-weight adult. (I was so fat the minister who baptized me actually had to hand me off because his arms got tired. My dad still blames his back problems on carrying my roly-poly infant self around.)
Don’t want your kids to be fat? Here's a solution: Eat healthy. Kids learn eating habits from their parents. We’ve got to be role models – and putting babies on diets is not the way to start.
What do you think? Have you ever worried about your baby's weight? Have your say in the comments.
Related: Magazine editor admits he airbrushed out baby's fat rolls.
Also related: From parody to reality, SNL skit spoofs Spanx for babies
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Sick and wrong.
If the parents eat a balanced healthy diet than most likely they won't have to worry about their kids getting fat.
Children eat what their parents eat, so it the adults ate better so would their children. I can not eat sugar, my kids can and do when I buy it. My children love unsweetened ice tea, crystal lite, veggies and foods of this nature. Children should never be on a diet, unless their physician tells you they need to cut back on the high calorie foods, but only under a physicians care. Not because you think you baby is fat. A lot of children do what I call chub out,but when their height catches up to their weight they are fine.
Starving your kid is one way to insure they have a eating disorder later. They will either be obsessed with weight, or obsess with eating since they were deprived as children. Kids should be taught healthy eating habits, but given treats from time to time. And here is a news flash, sodas and junk food are not good for kids or their parents either.
This is sick, and shameful. Babies are supposed to have fat on their bodies, it's normal, they're all a little chubby. These parents are going to have to deal with anorexia, and bulimia, and serious body image problems with their child if they don't pull their head out of their ass. If you're one of those people who thinks every person should have a flat belly, firm arms and thighs, and no flaws, then you have NO business having children. It's the parents' job to feed their children, and tell them they're beautiful the way they are, not to try and mold them into something that only they approve of.
These strike me as the same type of parents who dress their daughters up in floofy dresses, slather gobs of make-up on their faces and parade them around like show dogs to have a judge tell them that their child is "beautiful".
And then they wonder why their teen-aged daughter is rushed to the hospital for going into cardiac arrest after taking half a bottle of black market diet pills.
Terrible! Babies are supposed to be chubby. That any parent would believe otherwise indicates a psychological disorder that needs to be treated (preferably before they reproduce).
Whoa here! Do NOT assume that if a child (young) is thin that it has anything to do with a parent's decision to "starve" them!!! My son was born premature and has always been very low on the weight scale in relation to height. Always. And it has absolutely nothing to do with what he does/doesn't eat. My daughter is naturally thin as well. She was born at a fairly normal weight, and just never got the baby "chubbies"; she just looked healthy. They were ALWAYS fed high quality formula (no other option) and baby food as much as they wanted; no attempt to "control" their weights.
We talk about what is healthy and not to eat, but they choose well and have maintained healthy weights. Babies are NOT always "chubby"!!!!
Their dad is a normal, and tall, weight. I am very heavy. They take (thankfully) after their dad...
Well, healthy babies do have some fat on them!
I take exception to your judgement. My daughter is naturally on the thin side and was always one of the least-chubby babies I'd ever seen and I was happy about it. I don't think that babies who look like the Michelin Man are particularly attractive. It has nothing to do with psychological issues on my part.
I've never starved her. She was breastfed for over a year. We we eat healthy as a family and avoid junk food. She's not quite two and still on full-fat dairy. She just hasn't ever been a chunky kid. That I'm pleased with that is not a personal flaw.
kash- Exactly!!!!
Extremes on either end of "normal" are of concern; not whether they are slim due to genetics or the nature of a child's personality.
But did you put laxatives in the babies formula? Or water it down? This article is talking about the extremes parents go through when they project insecurities onto their babies, not about babies who are naturally disposed to being thin.
No, a baby should not be put on a diet, however, babies are most certainly NOT suppose to be fat. There is more and more evidence that all those chubby cheeked babies grow up to be chubby teens and rotund adults. Babies know when they are hungry and when they are full, which is one of the many reasons why breastfeeding is ideal - baby will eat until they are full. Too many formula fed babies are forced to finish the bottle.
Breast feeding is ideal and I wish it worked for everyone. Sadly, I was not able to do that for more than a few weeks with either of my children.
I guess I paid more attention than most; I NEVER forced either of my kids to finish a bottle. When they lost interest I simply put the bottle away and cleaned it up.... I cannot imagine ever forcing an infant to finish a bottle. Wow.
I was a skinny baby and normal sized (weight) toddler and child...then during puberty and beyond was over weight and continue to be over weight into middle age...whether a normally chubby baby/toddler grows up to be an over weight teen or adult has more to do with eating habits formed later in life than whether a baby is chubby or fat.
When my daughter was three months old, the pediatrician wrote in her record that she was "extremely obese," despite her being 100% breastfed. Another pediatrician told us that it's important to ask the parents if they were also fat babies because that can be an inherited trait even amongst normal weight adults.
The pediatricians tracked her weight, encouraged us to supplement with bottles of water and later, pureed fruit and vegetables, and when she turned one, to give her reduced fat milk instead of whole milk or formula.
Excessively fat babies may be slower to learn to sit up, crawl, and walk due to their size. Parents should question the pediatrician about the difference between normal, healthy baby chub and worrisome FAT babies and follow the doctor's advice.
I have to say,the comment "babies are most certainly NOT suppose to be fat. There is more and more evidence that all those chubby cheeked babies grow up to be chubby teens and rotund adults" gave me a good laugh. My ex-husband was the FATTEST baby you have ever seen, I mean I dont know how that little buddha baby in the pictures was sitting up, and as an adult he is 5'6" and 135lbs soaking wet.
Babies are supposed to be chunky, there needs to be a happy medium somewhere. I admit, I think there is nothing cuter than fat baby cheeks and chunky baby thighs, but there is an overboard to baby weight gain and NO BABY EVER should be on a diet. That is disturbing to read!
My sister was so afraid her baby would get fat that she starved her. The baby ended up having to have part of her intestines removed. She spent the rest of her life under state custody. My sister still starves herself, and her daughter is an over-weight adult.
Ido not agree with putting babies on a diet. I have three kids. The oldest is 12 and the youngest five. They were all breast fed exclusively from birth to at least 9 months. They were all considered very fat as infants. In fact the doctor told me I was overfeeding my last child and tried to get me to limit her food intake (Breast milk and water). I always received compliments from other mothers however about how healthy they looked. What I noticed in all three cases is that as soon as my kids began to walk, their weight just melted away and almost overnight they went from fat babies to very slim, slender toddlers. I try to maintain a healthy diet with lots of vegetables, whole grain bread and cereals, limit the junk food and suggary snacks and they are all pretty healthy kids. In fact the oldest boy, who as an infant had two chins and almost no visible neck is considered underweight in comparison to his peers. we are working on that. So just provide a healthy diet and opportunities for play and exercise. the kids don't need to diet.
I see nothing wrong with parents encouraging their children to eat a diet of nutritious foods and ensuring that they eat a healthy number of calories per day. But at the same time, it is ridiculous to put a baby on a diet because he/she is "fat."
I agree with Steve C
Breastmilk is extremely high in fat and it is accepted by the AAP as the most healthy food for young babies, and breastfed babies actually tend to put on more weight in the first six months of life than formula-fed babies do. It's not as if historically babies were once skinny and our society has made them chub up.
Babies and toddlers DO actually need whole fats in their diets. It is critical for brain development. So, restricting a baby is not necessarily a great idea. In some cases, a baby's weight or weight gain may be a problem, but that is something for parents and physician to gauge on an individual basis. No parent or bystander should look at a baby and pronounce him or her obese.
In general, my understanding and my experience is that babies tend to get chubby and then once they start moving -- crawling, cruising and walking -- they tend to slim out. Makes sense.
What I find ironic is that there is all this obsession about chubby babies and when I was in the hospital breastfeeding my second child, I was pressed every 6 hours to try to feed my baby some formula just to see if she would take it. This even happened when she was not yet 24 hours old. I was like... Dr., her stomach is the size of a marble. But I was told she should eat at least 2 oz. every few hours.
Talk about starting young.
Read the article...this is about obsessed people putting babies on diets and starving their kids...not about naturally body thin children or adults....but people who abuse their children.
And don't think there aren't a lot of them out there. I had a young neighbor who starved her baby because her mother in law was obese. She was so damn worried about the baby being fat. It was a sad and sickening situation.
Are you surprised? The media is constantly screaming about the obesity "epidemic" and how fat people die young, and have lots of health problems, etc. Plus there's all the social stigma of being fat: the bullying, the rude comments, being told you're lazy or a pig, etc. Fat is ugly, fat kills, fat is equated with being poor and stupid.... Fat is bad, bad, BAD!
This is all we ever hear. So we're shocked and appalled when people are worried about their babies being fat? What parent wants their kid to grow up and have to deal with all of that?
We talk about childhood obesity and how horrible it is, but at one point does it start? It's okay for a baby to be fat, but not a 6 year old? At what point does fat go from being cute and normal to being an epidemic that must be constantly battled? No one has ever drawn a line in the sand where they say fat is okay when younger than this but bad when older than this (because there is no science to back up such a claim, wherever it's made, but that's an argument for another day). So why should we find it surprising that some parents start the war against fat at birth?
It's a perfectly logical, rational thought if you buy into fat = evil, and the thinner the better. And if you let society and the media think for you.
I guess that's another thing to add to all the 'new parent' books out there! No baby or child should be placed on any food restrictions without the OK of the baby's doctor! I had three formula fed fat babies that all thinned out. A diet with *no* sugary snacks is a good way to breed an overweight adult, though! The key is 'moderation' with everything.
As for fat adults? Well, I'm an ICU nurse who is now disabled from the sheer number of morbidly obese patients I've taken care of, and the toll it took on my back! When you're first starting to have problems reaching to wipe yourself, THAT is the red flag that you need to stop overeating and lose weight. It's sickening to see the lack of care of these people when they come in the hospital! Mostly because they can't see or reach many areas of their body. If a baby doesn't ever get the baby fat, then I'd say they need to be checked for illness. Failure to thrive can result from some serious illnesses...
Genetics can have a lot to do with a child's growth pattern.
My child was a 24 lb 6 month old, but as a toddler her weight gain has levelled out and she continues to grow up and not out. Tall people are normal in my family and most of us grew like weeds as babies and became much leaner as young children and adults. The doctor never worried about my child's weight because I am tall (5' 11"). My brothers, cousins, father, grandfather, and gr-gr-grandfather are/were several inches taller than me. I am the shortest of the five grandchildren in my family. My grandfather, mom, aunt, brother, and niece were all about 10 lb at birth.
I came across the height and weight chart that my gr-grandmother kept for my 6' 4" grandfather who was born in 1926. He was a 10 lb baby at birth, a 30 lb 1 year old, and a 36 inch tall 2 year old. Not surprisingly, my niece and daughter have followed the same pattern in their growth. Both are tall, sturdy, slender children. To have purposely deprived them of nutrition as babies because they were chubby would have been a crime.