...only one of those things isn't true.
Anyway, loads of super-interesting things here. Clara was a Canadian paediatrician who procured (and I think procured was the word) 15 infants of weaning age in the 1930s and experimented by letting them feed themselves from a range of foods to see if they would end up healthy or not. Oooooh, there's so much here to gladden the heart of a BLWer. Not to mention the definition of weaning age as 'between 6-11 months', which rather puts the 'these guidelines change every week' mob's gas in a peep. As we say in Bonnie Scotland.
Of course, it's a little on the woolly side because there's no actual data, but it's fascinating stuff. And the ethics of it, my god, it would never be allowed today or at least I bloomin' well hope so.
And to those of you who are thinking... 'didn't I read this post before..?' Well, you did. And somehow this crummy blogware deleted it. I've noticed it happening elsewhere, too. First they shut me down for exceeding bandwidth and now this. Ladies, I fear the day that this software and I part company is fast approaching.
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Some ACTUAL RESEARCH into something a wee bit like BLW - Clara M. Davis. Paediatrician, Canadian, Ethicist.
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Re: Have a look at the new link - Clara M. Davis etc
I read this ages ago. Fab, isn't it. Satisfied the scientist in me that I was doint the "right" thing.
Re: Re: Have a look at the new link - Clara M. Davis etc
Yeah, me too, Moomin. my inner geek was pacified by the thought of some research.
i can't believe i'd totally forgotten about it until now, though, how dense is that? Re: Have a look at the new link - Clara M. Davis etc
by
Eleanor
on Tue 03 Jul 2007 16:40 BST | Profile | Permanent Link
Isn't this part sad, though?
"In the early part of the 20th century, a nutritional battleground had opened up between science-infatuated pediatricians and remarkably recalcitrant and apparently unscientific children. Armed with growing evidence from the newly emerging field of nutrition, doctors began prescribing with bank teller–like precision what and when and how much a child should eat in order to be healthy. Children quite often responded to doctor-ordered proper diets by shutting down and refusing to eat anything. One physician of the period estimated that 50%– 90% of visits to pediatricians' offices involved mothers who were frantic about their children's refusals to eat — a condition then called anorexia. On their part, at least some doctors responded to the children's hunger strikes by declaring war on children's aberrant appetites and eating patterns. For instance, Alan Brown, co-creator of Pablum and head of pediatrics at Toronto's The Hospital for Sick Children (popularly known as Sick Kids), advised mothers in the 1926 edition of his best-selling book on child-rearing, The Normal Child: Its Care and Feeding to put children on what was literally a starvation diet until they submitted to eat doctor-sanctioned meals." Makes you weep. Re: Have a look at the new link - Clara M. Davis etc
by
Thell
on Tue 03 Jul 2007 21:51 BST | Profile | Permanent Link
Aha!
I have a few books by American nutritionist Adele Davis that were written in the 70s - she mentions this study but not by name, and I've been looking for it! Fantastic stuff. [of course I tried to mention this to my HV: HV: Children are not like animals, they don't have instincts to tell them what they should and shouldn't eat. Me: Actually I've read that there was a study... HV: I think you'll find it will have been discredited. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Maybe she thought I was too stupid to realise that salted and sugared foods interfere with a baby's nutrition radar - and should not be offered for self-selection :oP ] I love the mention of the boy with severe rickets who self-medicated with cod-liver oil until he was better. Re: Re: Have a look at the new link - Clara M. Davis etc
"When the large trays of
foods, each in its separate dish, were placed before them at their first meals, there was not the faintest sign of "instinct" directed choice. On the contrary, their choices were apparently wholly random; they tried not only foods but chewed hopefully the clean spoon, dishes, the edge of the tray, or a piece of paper on it. Their faces showed expressions of surprise, followed by pleasure, indifference or dislike. All the articles on the list, except lettuce by two and spinach by one, were tried by all, and most tried several times, but within the first few days they began to reach eagerly for some and to neglect others, so that definite tastes grew under our eyes. Never again did any child eat so many of the foods as in the first weeks of his experimental period." i love that bit. or as we call it 'the now they get to have an opinion, dammit' phase. |
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