The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation will provide $500 million over the next five years to fight childhood obesity. This action comes in response to a growing body of evidence showing that overweight and obesity in children and adults have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Children are now being diagnosed with diseases previously seen only in adults, such as type 2 diabetes.

A cohort study published in the October 2006 issue of Diabetes Care was conducted by researchers from the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, Harvard University, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The study included 15,253 boys and girls ages 9 to 14 years.

After adjusting for a variety of variables, the prevalence of overweight in childhood decreased as exclusivity and duration of breastfeeding increased. This lends supports to the belief that some breastfeeding is better than none and more is better than less!

Lead researcher Elizabeth Mayer-Davis was quoted as saying, “Obesity is one of the leading risk factors for type 2 diabetes, and this study underscores the importance of breastfeeding to reduce the risk of childhood obesity.”