Are babies eating too much?
/It’s not secret that childhood obesity is a rapidly expanding problems globally.
While this problem started in some of the more advanced economies (with the US leading the way), the rapid growth in childhood obesity and diabetes is now being seen in most countries around the world, from the US, to Europe, the Middle East, and yes, even Asia and Africa.
A new report out of the UK indicated that 75% of babies in the country are being fed too many calories (see link below), with the result being that 75% of babies are overweight for their age.
This has resulted in experts in the UK issuing guidelines for feeding babies, which include: (i) breastfeeding up to the age of 6 months and avoiding high sugar and salt foods.
Of course, the problem is not limited to the amount of calories being fed to children.
Based on my research over the past several years, a problem much bigger than the number of calories is primarily to blame: the KIND of calories being fed to babies.
Babies are naturally born in a high-fat burning state: their bodies are designed to burn primarily fat for energy. This is why breastmilk is primarily composed of fat: to continue nourishing the baby with the ideal source of nutrition for its demanding growth.
However, misguided nutrition guidelines combined with the big advertising budgets of big food companies have resulted in a complete shift in the nutrition for babies away from natural foods (milk) towards high carb high sugar foods (baby food, baby cereal, baby fruit-based foods, etc).
These high carb foods immediately block the baby’s fat burning ability and causes the baby’s pancreas to start producing much more insulin than it is designed to do.
Never throughout human history have babies been fed so much carbohydrates at such an early age. This is a new phenomenon which developed in the 1970s and continues until today.
The end result is that we’re facing an epidemic of childhood obesity and diabetes.
