Özet:

Introduction: Breast milk is the most important food for babies up to six months of life, then feeding should be gradually complemented with healthy foods and breastfeeding should be encouraged until two years or more. Besides providing numerous benefits to the health of babies,the advantages of breastfeeding extend throughout life and contribute in promoting a proper growth and development and preventing many diseases including obesity. Objective: This work presents a literature review on the topic: breastfeeding, introduction of complementary foods and their relationship to childhood obesity. Literature review: we conducted a search of scientific papers through the internet, using Google scholar and the references of the articles found, the key words used were: breastfeeding, complementary feeding and childhood obesity. The research included the period was from 2000 to 2012.Conclusions: the practice of exclusive breastfeeding until six months of age and after the introduction of appropriate complementary feeding and maintaining up to two years or more is considered the healthiest eating habits that stage of life. Breastfeeding may have a protective effect against childhood obesity.

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