Overfeeding

“ The mother should exercise [1168] careful vigilance and judgment, especially in reference to the quantity of each feeding, and the frequency. The moment the child shows symptoms of overfeeding, which symptoms are usually evidenced by vomiting or discomfort, the quantity of cream and the amount at each feeding should be reduced. In fact, it is healthful, and often necessary for the child to allow it the opportunity to get hungry. The digestion of many a baby is totally ruined by continuous feeding, which is done out of motherly sympathy, or merely to keep it quiet. ”

“ Unfortunately, nearly all of them are persuaded to eat many times more food than they can digest, and thus they have no opportunity to recover, for the overfeeding ruins the digestive and assimilative powers beyond recuperative ability. ”

“ Then the same process of overfeeding recommences with renewed appetite and sensations of invigorated digestion, until in two or three, or five or six weeks, according to the ratio existing between the amount of food ingested and the habit of expending or eliminating it from the body, the recurring attack appears and again clears the system, and so on during several years of life. If the individual takes abundant exercise and expends much energy in the business of life, a large quantity of food can be properly disposed of. ”

“ Overfeeding Baby.—Every nursing mother should have printed and hung up, so she may read it every time she nurses her child, the following motto: "DON'T OVERFEED BABY." Few, if any, babies die of willful starvation: many die as a result of overfeeding. Mistaken kindness and lack of judgment are responsible for one-half of all the troubles of infancy. Babies require much less than is constantly given them. The stomach of a baby at birth will not hold more than one ounce, which is two tablespoonfuls ”

“ If the baby is being nursed, mother’s milk may not be rich enough and the baby is actually hungry. If it is bottle-fed, the wakefulness may be due to overfeeding. One of the most common forms of improper feeding is frequent nursing in the night. When a baby starts life by being fed three, four, or five times during the night, it develops into a poor sleeper. ”

“ And if these affections should at any time unfortunately manifest themselves, the mother ought carefully and diligently to examine whether the plan of feeding pursued is in every particular correct, particularly bearing in mind that the two causes most frequently productive of disorder in the child are overfeeding and the exhibition of unsuitable food—the two grand errors of the nursery. These results, however, have already been sufficiently dwelt upon as likely to take place at weaning, and they may of course occur to a child who is brought up on an artificial diet at any period. ”

“ Overfeeding contributes, in various ways, by increasing the amount of feculent matter passed on into the rectum, by hastening the food through stomach and small intestine imperfectly digested and therefore in a more irritating condition, and by contributing to obesity and lack of tone. ”

“ Overfeeding is most apt to occur at night. Many mothers put the child to the nipple for its regular feeding and fall asleep; the child keeps on nursing at intervals [Pg 224] until twice the proper quantity is taken; or she gives it the nipple or the bottle if it cries, without regard to whether it is the proper feeding time or not. The habit of overfeeding is very common in infants who are suffering from indigestion. They cry frequently, and are irritable most of the time; nothing seems to satisfy them but the nipple. ”

“ The results of too frequent feeding and overfeeding are appalling. The first ill effect is digestive disturbance. Then one or more of the ills of childhood make their appearance. These are called diseases, but they are only symptoms of perverted nutrition, though we insist on giving them names. ”

“ This sudden and remarkable curtailment in the alimentation of the individual can but produce a profound effect upon the whole nutrient apparatus of the body. Or, if, escaping this danger, the individual does not lessen his diet to correspond to the new scale of requirements, he is exposed to the perils of overfeeding, because he is taking an amount of food which has now become largely in excess of his necessities. Moreover, the risks from quantity of food are enhanced by others from its quality. ”

“ The chief error in rearing the young is overfeeding; and a most serious one it is; but which may be easily avoided by the parent pursuing a systematic plan with regard to the hours of feeding, and then only yielding to the indications of appetite, and administering the food slowly, in small quantities at a time. This is the only way effectually to prevent indigestion, and bowel complaints, and the irritable condition of the nervous system, so common in infancy, and secure to the infant healthy nutrition, and consequent strength of constitution. ”

“ In the light of recent knowledge upon, and extended experience of the subject, one such point which now appears incontrovertible is that there are thousands die annually—directly or indirectly—through overfeeding where one dies through insufficient nourishment. ”

“ The external appearance of such cases of obesity, which we have described before the French Congress of Medicine in 1904, and the London Pathological Society, February 21, 1905, as endogenous obesity, is also clinically different from the appearance of those caused by overfeeding. As we have shown, persons addicted to rich food, with little exercise, are often red in the face, and are plethoric; they easily become overheated and perspire freely. They seldom complain of constipation. ”

“ It is only when the stomach has been ruined by long years of overfeeding that one must use all the precautions which physical culturists and health-food advocates and cranks of that ilk advise—must eschew biscuits for bread two days old, and half-starve oneself in order to live at all. ”

“ The well-nourished body of a properly fed child does not furnish an abiding-place for disease-germs.
Through watching the conferences between mothers and physicians at Better Babies Contests, I have come to realize that, while 75 per cent. of the ailments from which babies suffer can be traced to some form of stomach or bowel trouble, comparatively few women recognize symptoms of malnutrition or overfeeding for the menace which they really are. Many mothers seem to consider that a slight digestive trouble is almost as casual a feature of baby’s career as teething. ”

“ This is often very difficult, for most people do not know what moderation is. In infancy the too frequent feeding and the overfeeding begin. The common belief that infants must be fed every two hours, or oftener, is acted upon. The result is that the child soon loses its normal hunger, which is replaced by abnormal hunger. When food is long withheld it begins to fret. The mother again feeds and there is peace for an hour or so. When mothers learn to feed their children three times a day and no more there will be a great decrease in infant ills and a falling off in the infant mortality. ”

“ The pain that young infants often suffer, and the crying that results from it, is, as we have already said, frequently caused by the mother inconsiderately overfeeding her child, and is produced by the pain of distension, and the mechanical pressure of a larger quantity of fluid in the stomach than the gastric juice can convert into cheese and digest. ”

“ Another remarkable fact is, that we find, even in very old people, a diarrhœa which would naturally seem to weaken and prostrate even a strong man, but the effects of which are not noticed until suddenly we learn that death has taken place. Overfeeding is a frequent cause of these senile diarrhœas. The pressure of undigested food in the intestinal canal is followed by a sudden purging, without pain, hut exceedingly rebellious and difficult to conquer. ”

“ If, therefore, the mother persists
in trying to give the child four ounces of food, the child will suffer
from an excess. Many children during the first few mouths of life bring
up their food, and the mother fears that there is some inherited
tendency to weak digestion. It is wrong to feed a child simply because
it cries, as very frequently it is not a cry of hunger, but one caused
by indigestion from overfeeding.
If the child is being fed with the bottle it is important that the food
be given at a temperature of 100 deg. ”

“ My opinion, on the other hand, after a long experience, during which time my eyes have not been shut, is that the large majority of the diseases of humanity are due to mal-nutrition and that the form of that mal-nutrition is over-feeding—not under-feeding. This opinion should be taken for what it is worth. But to test it we should ask ourselves: What is the reason for the necessity to take food into the body? Is it to give strength and heat to the body? Or is it to restore the waste of the body sustained by the action on it of the force of life or zoo-dynamic which inhabits it? ”

“ To commence, I fear it must be admitted that the majority of infants are reared on imperfect milk by weak or ill-fed mothers. And thus it follows that the signs of disease, of feeble vitality, or of fretful disposition, may be observed at a very early age, and are apparent in symptoms of indigestion or in the cravings of want manifested by the ‘peevish’ and sleepless infant. In circumstances where there is no want of abundant nutriment, over-feeding or complicated forms of food, suitable only for older persons, produce for this infant troubles which are no less grave than those of the former. ”

“ Food ought for the first month to be given about every two hours; for the second month, about every three hours; lengthening the space of time as the baby advances in age. A mother must be careful not to over-feed a child, as over-feeding is a prolific source of disease.
Let it be thoroughly understood, and let there be no mistake about it, that a babe during the first nine months of his life, MUST have—it is absolutely necessary for his very existence—milk of some kind, as the staple and principal article of his diet, either mother's, wet-nurse's, or asses', or goats', or cow's milk. ”

“ Like adults they become thirsty, but instead of getting water to quench their thirst they are given milk. This satisfies for a little while, then the irritability due to milk spoiled, in the alimentary tract causes more restlessness and crying, and they are fed again. The comedy of errors continues until it is turned into a tragedy.
How much should the baby be fed at a time? When the parents are healthy and the baby is born right and then fed but three times a day, the food intake will regulate itself. The child will not usually want more than it should have of milk, supplemented with water. ”

“ Food in its preparation has long been subordinated to the sense of taste, and, ingested in excess of the amount required to make good the losses incurred through physical and mental activity, has entailed much unnecessary labor upon the processes of digestion and disposal of waste. Because of almost universal violation of the natural law of nutrition in respect to overeating, this vice, apparent though it be, and weakening and distressing in its effects as it is, calls for correction as does no other in the long list of offenses against nature. ”

“ If the diarrhoeal attack is more severe, and attended by fever and foul-smelling movements of greater frequency, all milk should be stopped immediately and the diet mentioned just above under the head of acute disturbances of the stomach should be employed.
What changes in the food should be made when the child seems to have very little appetite and yet is not ill?
The number of feedings should be reduced, the interval being lengthened by one hour or even more. No greater mistake can be made than to offer food every hour or two to an infant who is not hungry. ”

“ The representative nurse believes in cramming; babies, like prize-pigs, are most admired when they are ready to die with fatty degeneration. The child is coaxed to suckle almost every half-hour, day after day, till habit begets a morbid appetite, analogous to the dyspeptic's stomach distress which no food can relieve till over-repletion brings on a sort of gastric lethargy.
"Many hand-fed infants, weighing about ten pounds, will swallow one and a half quart of cow's milk in one day," says Dr. ”

“ Vomiting, restlessness, and gross fatness, are some of the symptoms of the surfeit-disease, and its proper cure is—not soothing-sirups, but—fasting. Four nursings a day are enough, five more than enough, and the ejection of milk after suckling is a sure sign that the quantity given at each meal should be diminished. A pint of milk a day is about as much as a dyspeptic infant can really digest, and to cram it merely in order to stop its crying is quite mistaking the cause of its restlessness ”

“ Overeating, by introducing an unnecessary amount of food into the body, overworks the organs of digestion and also the organs of excretion. It may also lead to the accumulation of burdensome fat and of harmful wastes. On the other hand, the taking of too little food impoverishes the blood and weakens the entire body. As a rule, however, more people eat too much than too little, and to quit eating before the appetite is fully satisfied is with many persons a necessary precaution. The power of self-control, valuable in all phases of life, is indispensable in the avoidance of overeating. ”

“ The children in the former case thrive well enough for the first six weeks or two months, but then, obtaining the milk in too small a quantity to meet the demands of their rapid growth, they pine and fret, they lose both flesh and strength, and, unless the food given to supply their wants be judiciously selected, their stomach and bowels become disordered, and nutrition, instead of being aided, is more seriously impaired. In the case of the mother whose milk disagrees with the child from some defect in its quality, the signs are in general more pronounced. ”