Hi Kirsten -

You might want to take a look at Kay Dewey's review of the literature on
breastfeeding and obesity, which reviews 11 recent studies on this
relationship.  The evidence of the link between not breastfeeding and
obesity are why, among other activities, any state receiving CDC funding
to prevent and control obesity must include a breastfeeding
intervention.  Both the Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS)
and Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System (PNSS) collect data that are
used to track breastfeeding and obesity over time as well.  You might
want to visit some of CDC's websites on this issue for more information:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/index.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/state_programs/index.htm

A search on PubMed for Kathryn Dewey and Obesity will yield her
citation, a PubMed search of Obesity and Breastfeeding will yield many
more articles on this topic.

Katherine

Katherine Shealy, MPH, IBCLC, RLC
Public Health Breastfeeding Specialist
Maternal and Child Nutrition Branch
Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/

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Date:    Thu, 3 Jun 2004 12:42:05 -0400
From:    Kirsten Berggren <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Is there a study of Longitudinal BF/Obesity in US?

I'm interested in knowing if there has ever been a study done looking at
the long term correlation between breastfeeding and obesity.  I've been
cruising the archives for a while, but haven't found any reference to
anything other than the study looking at Brazilian teens, and the well-
known studies looking at obesity correlation in children.

It seems like it would be pretty easy to do a study looking at adults in
the US and compare BMI to just a yes/no if they were ever breastfed.  I
know it would be a very course study - the issues of whether BMI
actually represents obesity level (my vote is no) and no consideration
of BF duration, but I still think it would be an interesting place to
start.  And I know that statistics often get people's attention when
facts and opinions don't.

In walking around my predominantly poor, white neighborhood, I see so
much obesity, and in seeing the world through lactation-glasses, I find
myself saying "I'll be she wasn't breastfed...".  I think it would be
amazing to see parallel lines on a graph showing the rates of obesity
going up in exact tandem with the rates of breastfeeding going down
(which is a slightly different issue - maybe this could be charted w/
existing data from CDC?).  Anyone know if something like this has been
done?

Thanks so much,
Kirsten Berggren, PhD and aspiring ICBLC

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