The longer white infants from low-income families are breast-fed, the less likely they will be overweight as young children, researchers said.

The study of more than 177,000 children from low-income families who visited U.S. public health clinics between 1988 and 1992 found that formula-fed infants and babies breast-fed for less than a month were more likely to develop weight problems by age 4 than infants breast-fed for longer periods.

However, the correlation between breast-feeding duration and healthier weight was limited to whites in the study, and did not apply to Hispanics or blacks, who made up nearly one-third of the participants.

U.S. obesity rates among children and adults have been climbing, with Hispanics and blacks the most likely to be overweight.

The report, which was published in the journal Pediatrics, speculated that different dietary habits among low-income Hispanics and blacks overwhelmed breast-feeding's benefits.

Among the possible reasons behind the correlation are that breast-fed children seem to be better able to self-regulate their eating at mealtimes compared to formula-fed children, the report said. Breast-fed babies likely exert more control over when to stop suckling, while babies fed formula might be urged to finish off a bottle or were left wanting more.

Breast-fed children also have been found to make an easier dietary transition to vegetables than formula-fed children, wrote study author Laurence Grummer-Strawn of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

And compared to breast milk, formula provokes a greater insulin response that may lead to early deposits of body fat, he wrote.

Breast-feeding is known to provide valuable nutrients and to strengthen the bond between mother and child. The American Academy of Pediatrics, which publishes Pediatrics, recommends mothers breast-feed for at least a year, and the World Health Organization recommends two years.

In 2001, only 69.5 percent of new American mothers said they had ever breast-fed their newborns and just 32 percent were still breast-feeding at six months. Low-income mothers were the least likely to breast-feed.

In the study, less than one-third of the children were ever breast-fed, and only 6 percent were breast-fed for more than six months.

Among whites, 14.5 percent of infants who had never breast-fed became overweight, compared to 7 percent of those breast-fed at least a year. The proportion of overweight Hispanic children in the study ranged from 22 percent to 29 percent, and among blacks between 13 percent and 19 percent, with duration of breast-feeding having little impact.

Reference Source 89

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