It's tempting to push underweight kids to eat more food or more types of food to encourage weight gain. On the other hand, if your child is overweight, restricting higher-calorie fare might seem like a reasonable idea. But a study by researchers in the United Kingdom at Keele University and the University of Birmingham indicates that trying to control infants' feeding habits may affect their weight gain in undesirable ways.

In this study, researchers observed 69 moms feed their 6-month-old infants during a normal meal. Researchers rated moms according to how much they controlled their infant's feeding — from not controlling (allowing the infant to control how much and what he or she eats and simply supervising the infant during the feeding time) to very controlling (continuously forcing, offering, positioning, or distracting the infant to eat). The infants were weighed and measured at birth, 6 months, and 12 months, and moms reported whether they breastfed and for how long.

Researchers discovered a significant relationship between the moms' control of food and the infants' weight gain during the first year of life. When moms had low or moderate control, infants seemed to regulate their own weight gain during the first year. Babies who gained weight early in life tended to have slowed weight gain, and babies who gained weight slowly initially had accelerated weight gain later.

But when moms exerted lots of control over food, their babies' weight gain followed the opposite pattern. Infants who gained weight early tended to continue to gain weight, and babies who were slow to gain showed slower weight gain from 6 months to 1 year.

What This Means to You. The results of this study suggest that both pressing your child to eat more or restricting food in the first few months of life may actually be counterproductive. Using controlling food practices may teach kids to rely on signals other than hunger to eat, which may predispose them to weight problems later in life. Serving kids a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, and lean protein-containing foods — and allowing them to choose how much to eat — is the best strategy to ensure good nutrition and a healthy weight. If you're worried about your infant's weight gain during the first year, discuss your concerns with your doctor.

Source: Claire Farrow, PhD; Jackie Blissett, PhD, C Psychol; Pediatrics, August 2006.

Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen
Date reviewed: September 2006