Melissa, at the end of her excellent analysis of the study in question, writes that she 
believes that breastfeeding provides some protection against obesity.  And then Jennifer 
points out that even long term breastfeeding can’t possibly mitigate against the obesity 
caused by the Standard American Diet and the sedentary lifestyle that goes with it.

I wonder if a better way to think about breastfeeding as it relates to obesity is to think of 
it the way we think about fruit, vegetables, and other whole foods.  It’s not that eating 
these foods magically protects us from getting fat, but rather that these foods are A) 
extremely good for us and B) Not implicated in the obesity epedemic.  

To Weissengerize, I would say this: breastfeeding is not magical.  It is a normal part of 
the human diet -- one that supports normal growth and optimal health.  It’s a bit sad that 
we have to prove to the world that breastfeeding confers special protections against the 
consequences of our bad habits, and then, when a study comes along and suggests that it 
doesn’t have this special attribute, we find ourselves inundated with news stories 
suggesting that maybe breastfeeding isn’t such a big deal after all and maybe artificial 
feeding is just as good.  

One might ask why we haven’t see a slew of studies asking whether or not artificial 
feeding causes obesity.  

Poor design notwithstanding, the current study, along with other discussions about 
breastfeeding and obesity, are very telling about the American view of diet and nutrition.  
By asking if breastfeeding protects against obesity, we are asking if it is the magic pill 
we’ve been looking for that will solve the obesity problem for us.  

As Jennifer points out, as long as we feed our children, and ourselves, a steady diet of 
junk food, nothing is going to solve this problem.

As Michael Pollan wrote in the New York Times Magazine article I slavishly praised a 
couple of months ago, food producers in the US pretty much won’t allow the government 
to tell people to eat less.  So the government tells us what we should eat a lot of, but not 
what we should avoid entirely.  For example, they can say, “Eat a diet high in fiber and 
low in saturated fat,”  but they can’t say, “Eat less dairy and red meat”  or “Preservatives 
are bad for you, so avoid foods with a long shelf life.”   Pollan then cites studies that 
show that whether or not we are actually eating more of the good stuff, we are certainly 
not eating less of the bad stuff.

The extent to which breastfed babies eat normal food (breastmilk, whole foods) and 
abstain from junk food (formula, candy, fast food, processed snack foods), is the extent 
to which we will see breastfed children avoiding obesity.  Nothing, not even 
breastfeeding, protects us from sitting on our bums all day partaking of the Standard 
American Diet.  

Kerry Ose

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]