Spoon Feeding Makes Kids Overweight

If you’re introducing a new type of food to your kid and you spoon-feed them, give up the habit as soon as possible. A study in the UK showed this leads to weight gain in children.

The study’s author Amy Brown from Swansea University reported the fact that it is undesirable to spoon-feed kids. According to her, the parents who spoon-feed their babies with pureed food create bad eating habits that lead to obesity.

The babies who have long been spoon-fed, most likely will be overweight in the future, since it is difficult for such children to determine whether they are full. As a result, they overeat.

The conclusion about the harmfulness of spoon-feeding was made after analyzing observation results on 298 children aged 6 to 12 months. First, the babies were monitored at the stage of the transition from milk to solid foods. Then, the same children again were observed at the age from 18 to 24 months. Having studied the weight and the children’s eating behavior, experts found out that the kids had different eating habits.

The kids who were given solid food and were allowed to eat it on their own could understand if they are already full. In contrast, the children who were spoon-fed by pureed food did not receive such signals.

Amy Brown explains that a child who eats by him(her)self gets the opportunity to eat at his(her) own tempo, carefully studying the taste of the food. It allows the child to control food intake, and generally creates healthy eating habits.