My friend is restricting her baby’s food because she thinks she’s too “fat”. What should I do?
I’m really worried about my friend’s baby. She and I were pregnant together and meet up most weeks with our babies for coffee. My baby is six-months-old and hers is eight-months-old.
We were talking about solids, which foods they like and don’t like, how we cook the foods, how much they eat or don’t eat, and then she said, “But I don’t want her eating too much. Her thighs are really chubby.”
I thought she was joking when she said this so I laughed, but it quickly became clear that she wasn’t joking. My friend has always been very aware of her weight.
Before becoming parents our favourite topics of conversation were dieting and detoxing. Now that she’s a mum we talk about our post-baby bodies quite a bit, how we are feeling, how we are losing the weight…
It's never been about our babies and how much they weight. Babies are meant to be chubby. It's healthy.
I said this to her and she said she read an article which claimed we form our fat cells for life in those first few months. Once a particular number of fat cells are developed they never go away, they just get bigger and smaller, for life. This really scared her so she started thinking that she'd better make sure her baby didn't get too big and restricting her feeds.
But she's just a little girl. She's meant to be a bit big, especially on her little legs.
I know she's a first-time parent and everything but so am I and I know enough to know that babies have chubby thighs. The thought of restricting a baby's food due to weight considerations just seems crazy to me.
I want to know what to do. Should I talk to her about it more seriously? I'm really concerned. I don't want her to overfeed her baby, but seriously, I'm really worried about her baby. If she's cutting back her daughter's food now, what will she be like as her child gets older?
Is it normal to worry about your baby putting on too much weight? Do I have a right to say something or is it none of my business?