SOUTHHAMPTON, England, Jun 2, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- British researchers have
linked lower body mass index in 4-year-old children to being breast fed longer
as infants.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism,
suggests breast-feeding duration and the weaning diet shapes a child's body
composition.
The findings revealed children who had been breast fed longer had a lower fat
mass not explained by differences in family background or the child's height.
The study used dual X-ray absorptiometry -- which measures bone mineral density
-- to make direct measures of body composition in 536 children at age 4. Their
diets as infants had been assessed when the children were 6 and 12 months old
using food frequency questionnaires administered by trained nurses. The weaning
period was defined as the transition in infancy from a milk-based diet to one
based on solid foods.
"Most studies linking infant feeding to later body composition focus on
differences in milk feeding, but our study also considered the influence of the
weaning diet," study lead author Sian Robinson of the MRC Epidemiology Resource
Center at the University of Southampton in England said in a statement.
"We found that, independent of the duration of breast feeding, children with
higher-quality weaning diets, including fruits, vegetables and home-prepared
foods, had a greater lean mass at 4."
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