Apparently spoon feeding babies is adding to the obesity epidemic that isn’t.
Babies weaned on pureed food tend to end up fatter than infants whose first tastes are finger food, researchers believe.
Once again, when presented with “research” published in the media, look for the tell-tale key words. here they manifest themselves as “believe” and “tend” and later on we get “appear”. Vague words that can be used to give an impression without recourse to awkward facts.
Spoon feeding babies mashed up fruits and vegetables appears to give them a sweeter tooth, a Nottingham University team found after studying 155 children.
155 children. You can stop reading this drivel right there. 155 subjects is not a representative example. The “research” therefore is meaningless. The story is intended to ramp up fear of a non-existent obesity epidemic based upon the deeply flawed use of BMI and as such, should be ignored.
It’s the same with the TV ads for women’s shampoo. There’s always a tiny note at the foot of the screen which says (for the millisecond that it’s on) that the ridiculously overblown claim concerning the shampoo is agreed to by 75% of 94 women in some poll organised by those in whose interest said ridiculous claim is made.
What – are we supposed to pitchfork feed them?
The pitchforks are probably best reserved for the fuckwits who come out with this cack.
But won’t be ignored, of course. Instead will be snapped up by every hectoring nannystater and pundit going and regurgitated more often than the baby food, mostly in the pages of the Indy & Guardian…
But you’re right of course. If this is the standard of research and analysis it’s no wonder our country is going down the toilet.
This feels to me like a piece of research in some way connected to the ‘breastfeed exclusively until six months’ nonsense. My daughters were both weaned at 4 months using pureed food because a) they were ready for it and b) they were bloody hungry all the time, despite Miss Starship’s marvellous lactating abilities. At 4 months though they had no teeth, little motor control and would most likely have choked on ‘finger food’ (which is not recommended until… 7 months!)
Is it not within the scope of these ‘expert’ intellects to realise that in some areas, the individual parents know best? Or are we damning our perfectly healthy, active, non-obese children to a lifetime of worry about whether they are going to turn into fatties because they had some mashed -up food when they were 4 months old?