Why Your Baby Needs Plenty of Healthy Fats
By Sue Gilbert

Limiting fat in your baby's diet is like trying to fool Mother Nature, and it doesn't work. There is no evidence that limiting fat in baby's diet reduces their risk of cardiovascular disease in later in life, or aids in weight control. Paradoxically, a child who gains too little weight in childhood is at greater risk of becoming an overweight adult because the caloric deficit metabolically programs their body to be more efficient in storing calories. If a baby's diet is chronically too low in fat it can lead to a condition known as Failure to Thrive, where baby gains too little weight, falls off the growth curve and begin to miss developmental milestones. Babies getting diets too low in fat and too low in essential fatty acids may suffer from visual problems and mental delays.

Mother Nature designed breast milk, and breast milk contains 50% fat. Traditionally, babies were nursed for a whole year, and so had a diet rich in fat at least until their first birthday. But now, breast-feeding doesn't always last for 12 months, and solid foods play a larger role in an infant's diet. But, with the fear of fat well ingrained in most parents, some are, with all the best intentions, mistakenly restricting the fat in their baby's diet by limiting the fat in those solid foods. If mother nature designed a baby's diet to be rich in fats for as long as a year, it makes sense, when making substitutions for that food, you would want to try and replicate much of it's nutritional content.

While there is no direct answer from Mother Nature as to the Ôwhy' of human design, scientists can hypothesize using data from observations and well designed studies. A couple of reasons for baby's high fat requirements during their first several months of life predominate. The first is caloric density. Gram for gram, fat supplies more calories than either protein or carbohydrate. And, when you are growing as rapidly as a baby is, you need a large amount of calories in proportion to your body size. So, getting as many calories in as small amount of food as possible, makes senseÉ. especially when your tummy is so small that you can't hold much at one time. Getting all the calories a baby needs without fat would be almost impossible, simply because they couldn't hold that much food.

A second predominating reason for a high fat diet is the need for essential fatty acids. Essential fatty acids are those your body can't manufacture and so are essential to get from your food. A baby's brain is still in a rapid stage of growth and development. By weight, the brain is 60% fat, and much of that fat is made from essential fatty acids. Therefore, the diet must supply a plentiful amount. For a baby fed a low fat diet, scientists are concerned that there could be profound negative consequences when the fat, so necessary for the growth and development of the brain, is not available in adequate amounts. Essential fatty acids are also an important component in the retina of the eye, and optimum visual acuity is dependent upon getting enough of them during the period of visual development, particularly the few months before and after birth.

The mixture of fats in breast milk is highly sophisticated, complex and dynamic. So much so that it's very hard to replicate a formula or food to match it. The nutritional content of mother's milk is constantly changing, not only from day to day, but from minute to minute. The hind milk is different than the fore milk, the breast milk of a mom with a prematurely born infant is different than that of a mom whose baby is full term. The breast milk of a vegetarian is different than that of a mom who consumes an omnivorous diet. A nursing mom who eats fish will have more of some types of fats than a nursing mom who does not. Due to these large variations in breast milk, it's hard to determine what really is the best diet for an infant. There are averages that can be determined from these variations, and much of the current suggestions and infant feeding guidelines are based on these averages. What we do know is that, on average, a baby does best on a high fat diet that supplies adequate amounts of essential fatty acids, and that a full year of a fat rich diet is best.

So, when you begin to wean from breast or bottle to table foods, keep in mind what Mother Nature designedÉ that you still need to maintain a high level of fat in your baby's diet. While adding fruits and vegetables during the first year is a good idea to develop a taste preference for those foods and to get the vitamins and minerals that they offer, remember you also need to include some fat rich foods too, like egg yolks, whole milk, meats, fish, and vegetable oils. Some butter and milk mixed into baby's mashed potatoes is fine. Adding cream to the mashed peas, or egg yolks into their cereal is a way to ensure they get the calories and essential fats that they need.

The time to begin the switch to a lower fat diets begins around a child's 2nd birthday, when you can begin the gradual change to lower fat dairy products, leaner meats, and fewer high fat foods. Until then, realize that your baby is unique from adults when it comes to nutritional needs and in particular, their need for fat.