Long bottle-feeding, obesity linked
Two-year-old children who are still fed with bottle are more likely to become obese later on in life than peers their weaned earlier, a new study suggests.
Temple University researchers, who studied 6,750 US children, found that toddlers who were still drinking from bottles at the age 2 are one-third more likely to become obese at the age of 5, Reuters reported.
Researchers could not exactly define whether the prolonged bottle-feeding directly increases obesity risk but raised the possibility that weaning babies from the bottle around their first birthday could help prevent excessive weight gain.
According to previous findings, prolonged bottle-feeding, especially overnight may cause cavities and lead to malnutrition and iron deficiency.
Therefore, doctors recommend parents to wean their bottle-feeding babies to toddler-friendly cups when they are about 12 to 14 months old, or even earlier.
Prolonged bottle-feeding may possibly provide unneeded calories to some children, wrote lead study author Rachel A. Gooze in the Journal of Pediatrics.
"The bottle may be providing a source of comfort, rather than meeting nutritional needs," he added.
Scientists say their new findings put further weight behind the current recommendations about the suitable age of winning bottle-feeding children.
Source: presstv.ir
