Chubby Babies

Babies are adorable. Chubby babies even moreso.

That's why articles like this one, stating that maybe the chub on your baby could indicate an early slide into obesity, make me so mad! It's not the only article of its kind.

They're babies! Please, let's let the babies be chubby if that's the way their bodies want it.

I only have my own empirical evidence here, but I'm going to go out on a limb and state that baby chubbiness has little to nothing to do with your weight later in life. For instance, I was a skinny baby and a skinny little girl. Then I hit puberty, sprouted hips and boobs, and gained an extra layer of fat (or two) that I've been fighting ever since.

My mom used to watch babies in our home. We had this one baby who was HUGE. She made us giggle with her roli-poliness. We fed her exactly what the other babies got, she just carried it in big, squeezable rolls. I saw her a few years later when she was probably 6 or so and she had leaned out completely. Not even the little six year-old belly remained. I don't think there's much rhyme or reason because babies and kids develop in completely different ways. Maybe Kate Moss was a chubby baby. There's no way to tell.

Our obsession with obesity is out of control! I have seen kids who are severely overweight and who are probably not eating good food and not getting outside and playing much. However, I think by and large some kids are skinny, some kids are chubby, and that's just how it is.

All these scary articles about the obesity epidemic are using that word as defined by the BMI, which I've mentioned before I think is a big load of hooey. I personally want to lose weight, but I know I'll never get out of the the "overweight" category according to the BMI. And, frankly, I'm fine with that because I've been "normal" weight before and I looked unhealthy.

I do realize that many people eat unhealthily and that we are constantly inundated with the extreme side of obesity in shows like The Biggest Loser. However, as Tom Naughton pointed out in his awesome movie Fat Head, in reality our average national weight has only gone up around 10 pounds. AND the key point is, our average national age has gone up by 10 years, from 25-35. The slowing of the metabolism as we get older can easily account for those extra 10 pounds.

Telling us our babies' chubbiness is just the slippery slope to obesity leads to babies being denied health insurance and parents starving their children because they don't want them to be fat. When I start a family, my plan is to feed my children healthy foods and if they are chubby, fabulous. I refuse to give my infant body image issues.