> Luckily since the population is all like that, they have a harder time
> trying to scare us into thinking we're too short.  ;-)
>
>
Gee, Fiona, I had forgotten about that!. I keep thinking, now, why was
weight gain not considered a problem with my first two, when all the
others weighed within a pound of them at one year of age? I thought it
was because it was in the 80s, and we didn't have the same "knowledge"
of bf -- introduced other foods earlier, starting with "fluids" and
moving into solids quickly. But it was perhaps more important that this
all happened in Québec. For those of you interested in regional
differences, obesity is viewed as a problem in adults but not such a bad
thing at all in formula-fed babies in the Maritimes. (My apologies to
anyone in the Atlantic provinces reading this; if you are reading it, I
am obviously not talking about you.) Our breastfeeding rates are pulling
themselves up by their bootstraps, the way all people here live and
work.
In Atlantic Canada, the "typical" stock of English-hearing babies is
largely from the UK, raised several generations in the east of Canada.
In New Brunswick, almost 30% of the population is of the same stock as
Fiona is mentioning, which tends to be smaller and more lactose
intolerant as adults (according to that study in which the French were
tested as well as Finns and others lighter in colour but not in weight).
There is evidence of Aboriginal descendence, especially in the Acadian
population. The Native population represents 4% of the New Brunswick
population and (as well as in the rest of Canada) suffers from a greater
rate of diabetes, obesity and formula feeding, although good progress is
being made in improving health care on and off reserves.
Although of 100% Scottish origin, my family-of-origin tends to be of
average height and lean (certainly as infants, and well into our 30s if
we are not pregnant) and we have all spent a bit of time in France,
where my brothers feel tall and one of them complains he can't get good
deals on 28" waists.
This all sounds uncomfortably like generalization and cultural bias, but
it reminds me thate that working at the local level involves
understanding the differences in expectation and attitude. People here
*love* being told that their babies look like one parent or the other,
one grand-parent or another, and the observation that babies' weight and
height at 12 mos. reflects adult height is extremely effective in
assessing and explaining weight gain patterns. Similarly, the concern
about obesity here makes certain aspects of breastmilk even more
important and "marketable". I'm not sure, however, how to deal with a
breastfed baby of large (perhaps overweight) parents who is gaining very
quickly. So far, no one has really been concerned about this. Others?
Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes,
Fredericton NB

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