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Lose the Baby Fat
OK, the United States has officially gone off the rails as a society. Writing a Newsday editorial titled “Obsession Over Thin Babies,” Victoria Torres laments the fact that it takes a village … to hassle her about her baby’s weight.
[H]e’s a butterball. Strangers can be cruel about it. Part of the shock of my son’s girth is that I’m not heavy and neither is my husband. From the time our boy was about 2 months old, neighbors would gawk and ask me what I fed him. At first, my response was ‘hamburger’ or ‘pudding’ with a smile. Eventually the inquisition got to me. To the most aggressively curious (and portly) men who posed the question, I spat: ‘What do they feed you?!’
Matters are made worse by the environment where Torres is bringing up her baby. In her neighborhood, it seems, the vogue is not for bouncy, chubby, happy babies, but for model-svelte babies, “hipster toddlers who look as emaciated as Iggy Pop.”
How do they achieve the “look”? One way is by watering down 1 percent milk for the toddlers, instead of giving the whole milk pediatricians generally recommend. The writer notes that she knows a mom who waters down breast milk (!).
Torres seems caught between what she feels is best for her baby and the pressure to have a lean child.
I don’t want my son to be obese. But I don’t want to subject him to the acute anxiety about his weight that so many other mothers seem to feel about their kids. Sometimes, I wonder if the mothers who shop in the organic food aisle really are worried that a chubby baby makes them look fat.
The national obsession with obesity and thinness seems to be trickling down to the toddler set, and, if this article is any indication, having heartbreaking results. As a commenter to the Newsday piece notes, early childhood should be a time when children are offered a wide range of foods and taught healthy eating habits that they can carry with them for life.
Posted by | Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 7:14am | 14 comments
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I think that parents who would even think of watering down breast milk probably shouldn't have children.
Please tell me that this is actually an article from The Onion. Please.
This reminds me of an article I read recently about pregnant women who starve themselves before doctors appointments so they won't have gained as much on their weigh-in, to the detriment of their babies.
Agggh! My 9 month old is a portly 27 pounds and wears 2 year old clothes. He eats only vegetables and fruit and turkey or chicken and his pediatrician rec'd formula. He's a chunk but there is NO way I would put him on a diet. The pediatrician says that limiting fat for babies inhibits their brain development. Parents putting their babies on diets are nuts.
Disgusting! Disgusted! These people are demented. these children will grow up to have creeping metabolisms, eating disorders and be handicapped with halfwit, nutrient-deprived, brains with 50% synaptic firing power.
Sad.
I agree with the poster who said that people who would water down breast milk shouldn't have children. What is the matter with people? And I have completely had it with the Fat Police. Enough already.
Wasn't something like this evidence of Anna Nichole Smith's deranged mental state just last month? And now it is a trend? It is a wicked world.
Never too young to start learning self-esteem issues.
....so sad
The article is primarily heresay and hyperbole. The author seems to be projecting her insecurities onto others and insults children who look different from her own child.
I am not sure where the author is coming from. I have a 3-year-old and have been waist-deep in the land of child-rearing since he was born and have never heard any mother that I associate with even mention weight and their children, except a few who worry that their children are actually underweight. I question whether this is actually an issue in 99% of the country. I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen in our weight-obsessed culture, but that it is a big issue is a fantasy, I think.
This is sick. Babies and toddlers are supposed to have a little weight on them. My son (closing on 15 mos) has a tendency to yo yo. Whenever he is about to have a growth spurt he bulks up a little and then is longer and leaner for a few weeks before he starts to bulk up again. That's normal. Fats are important to children (as well as adults)... just make sure they are heathy fats. If you starve your child to make sure he or she is thin, you do him or her a grave disservice.
Just what we need, instead of obese children we'll have kids with eating disorders. So much for careing for the health and well-being of children. Sometimes people in this country just make me sick.
are you complete idiots?!!! baby fat is just that...baby fat! as babies they don't know what a f***ing DIET is! all you can do for your child is make sound nutritional choices and let them eat. believe me, they don't worry about their weight or diets, that is what they will learn from their own parents!
Give the kids a break. The parents' problem should not be the babies. Chubby babies are cute and they should be. Just let them eat healthy and keep the breast milk straight.