Infant fatness and feeding practices: a longitudinal assessment.

In recent years, bottle feeding and the early introduction of solid foods in infants' diets have been proposed as factors contributing to overweight in infancy that might continue into childhood. These hypotheses were examined in a longitudinal survey of 403 infants from birth to 18 months of age. Results from this survey do not support either (a) a relationship between type of milk feeding or time of introduction of solid food and fatness at 6 months of age or (b) the hypothesis that fat infants remain fat.