Obesity: is it preventable in infancy and childhood?

The recent findings on the prevalence of obesity in adults in Canada are discussed from a pediatric perspective. Because infancy and childhood are critical periods in physiological development and in the establishment of habits, this period is considered as having the greatest potential for the prevention of obesity. Furthermore, obesity developed during infancy imposes special difficulties for weight reduction later in life. Certain environmental conditions and cultural practices may be implicated in the etiology of infantile obesity. It appears that the artificially fed baby introduced to solid foods at an early age may be at an increased risk of being overfed compared with the solely breastfed baby who is weaned gradually onto non-milk foods in the second half of the first year. It must be recognized that social, cultural, economic and psychological factors can interfere with established principles of human nutrition. Long term benefits must come from educating parents so that soundly based principles of nutrition are incorporated into infant feeding practices.