Reading the remarks about babies really makes me think. I wish that I had a high fat/protein, low carb diet when I was pregnant. All of my babies were jaundiced and had breathing problems that I think would have been avoided if I had avoided things like flour and rice. They also had learning problems that I think would have improved, or atleast benefitted from my present lifestyle.

Hi Mary– 

Muscle weighs a lot more than fat, so when you trade the same weight of muscle for fat your weight doesn’t change but you become a lot smaller.

I agree with you about the diet and fetal health.  I have a friend who is doing a lot of research on the issue of what to feed the mother while she is pregnant.  He has come to believe that the best thing is a diet low in refined carbohydrates during the first trimester and a diet high in fat and protein during the last trimester.  The growing fetus is laying down the cells that will become the pancreas during the first trimester, and a diet high in refined carbohydrates will cause the fetal pancreas to be overstimulated and cause problems for the child and adult later on.  The recommendation for the high-protein diet in the third trimester is because that is the time of maximal fetal growth, and that growth needs protein.

Best–

MRE 

Julian (my new son) is on an exclusive raw milk diet now. But I am at work on my next book, Baby Food, which will cover, along with The Fertility Diet and Eating for Two, First Foods. I am amazed at how many nursing mothers think it’s healthy to be vegan, low-fat, and vegetarian.

So my request to you is: do you know stories (or more scientific accounts) of first foods in baby diets in traditional societies? For ex, lightly cooked egg yolk (many), liver (Africa), and Parmigiano Reggianno with olive oil (Italy). Here, of course, the idea is all grains. But babies lack sufficient amylase. My feeling is that the overwhelming requirement from 0 to 2 is for quality fat and protein.

Send stories about what your grandmother fed your mother, or tales from abroad, to info@ninaplanck.com.

Keep up the excellent dialogue.

best wishes Nina

Hi Nina–

Thanks for writing.  Enjoy your baby boy; we’ve reared three and enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.

I’m engrossed in your book.

Best–

MRE

I looked again at the obesity map, and I don’t know if that is a factor or not. In the beginning it says BMI >30. So they may have gone back to the raw data and used a BMI of 30 to indicate obesity, even back to 1987 (or whatever year the map started). I didn’t notice a huge jump in 1998, so my guess is that that wasn’t a variable in the data.

I also don’t like BMI as a measurement. When they changed the obesity limit, my boyfriend immediately became “obese”, but he is a weight lifter, and is definitely not obese. Recently we both went and had our body fat tested by under-water testing. We both have a little extra fat (i.e. we are not in the athletic range), but are still in the normal range, not overweight.

Hi Cathy–

That’s my problem with the BMI, too.  According to the BMI 90% of the players in the National Football League would be considered obese.

Cheers–

MRE

Hi Regina–

Thanks for the info.  I hate the BMI as a measurement of obesity, so I tend to ignore anything I see written about it.  And if I had seen this tidbit, it’s just the kind of thing I can never remember.  I appreciate your digging it up or out of your memory.

Best–

MRE

New postal workers, the ones who become walking mail carriers, find that even with their new habit of walking miles to deliver the mail, gain weight snacking on junk food. So adding exercise while eating high carb/processed foods makes no difference in weight gain for carb-sensitve people.

I am really mystified, why researchers refuse to investigate these stories, preferring to imply that it’s a moral failure on the part of the people involved.

Hi LC–

Perhaps they refulse to investigate because it’s a moral failure on their part…

Cheers–

MRE

Hi Cathy–

I don’t have the date handy.  In fact, I didn’t know that the classification levels had changed.  If you’ve got info on it, I would love to see it.

Best–

MRE

I read Nina’s book and enjoyed it so much we are giving it as a holiday gift to all our clients.

And, btw, Nina is as lean and as muscular as she says she is. I trained her at Serious Strength a few months ago. She just had a beautiful baby boy.

Best,
Fred

Hi Fred–

Glad to hear that Nina is as lean and muscular as she says she is in her book.  What a great gift for your clients.

Cheers–

MRE