Currently the growth charts used to plot how babies are developing are based upon bottle fed babies. Bottle fed babies tend to put on weight a lot quicker than their breast fed counterparts. Therefore the average baby should actually weighs less than the chart shows. However given it doesn't and given the natural urge amongst parents to have a 'normal' baby - whatever one of those is, then some mothers are pressured to give up breast feeding and those who are bottle feeding may try to feed their baby up.
Clearly being overweight from the word go isn't going to help prevent obesity as the children get older. Therefore it is encouraging that new WHO charts have been backed in a report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. I hope the government takes this on board and an early switch to these new charts occurs.
