On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Secola/Nieft wrote:

> I hate to throw another variable into this thread, but it does integrate
> another thread. ;) Todd, were you you breastfed? I wasn't and find eating my
> fill is overeating as well.

Good one.  No, I wasn't.  I was unable to tolerate my mother's
breast milk, or cow's milk, for that matter.  They gave me some
kind of formula -- whatever they had back in 1953.  According to
my mother, I demanded twice the number of bottles that I was
supposed to be taking.  I was not an obese kid, but I was big.
And by the time I graduated high school, I was on my first diet.

> There are many studies correlating obesity in folks with the inverse of
> length of time being breastfed. In other words, the longer a child is
> breastfed the less chance of obesity (which likely correlates with
> overeating, and perhaps other related metabolic results).

It's perfectly possible that my satiety response was set to
hypercaloric at this early age, because the "formula" I was
getting was nutritionally crap, so I demanded more, to try to get
the nutrients.  Once the satiety threshold was established, I've
had to live with it ever since.  Of course, I don't know for a
fact that the satiety threshold is determined in this way, but it
makes sense out of a lot of things.  Overfeeding infants results
in a more than average *number* of fat cells, and some scientists
believe that this contributes to obesity by creating an
additional "demand" for body fat.  It's also one reason why
liposuction -- the only available method for reducing the actual
number of fat cells -- might have more than just immediate
benefit.

At any rate, this is yet another reason why "all you want,
whenever you want" claims are irresponsible.

Todd Moody
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