Parents Concerned About Babies' Weight

Nov. 29, 2010— -- With obesity rates among children doubling in the past two decades, more and more parents are putting their babies on diets, doctors say.

Pudgy cheeks that once drew "ooohs and aaahs" are eliciting "ughs" from some parents who have struggled with their own weight issues and fear their children will toddle along the same path.

"I have seen parents putting their infant and 1 year old on diets because of history in one parent or another," said Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, who chairs the nutrition committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics and is chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta.

Jodi Hasan is concerned about her daughter's weight because Hasan herself has battled weight problems her whole life.

She carefully manages Maya's diet; well-balanced with fruit and vegetables, and no junk food. Maya is in the 25th percentile for weight for her age and her mother admitted she was unconcerned when the baby's most recent checkup showed she had not gained weight. Her doctor says she is healthy.

"I don't want her to have any of the problems that I had: the self-consciousness, health issues," Hasan said. "I want her to have good self-esteem."

The brouhaha about baby fat was the subject of a recent "Saturday Night Live" skit that poked fun at parents who will stop at nothing to give their baby the perfect body. The "SNL" spoof asked viewers, "Do you have a fat baby? That's why you need Baby Spanx: In no time, your baby will go from flab to fab."

The joke is not far from the truth in many new families, said Dr. Blair Hammond, a pediatrician at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.

"There's some parents who are very pleased when their children are thin," Hammond said. "A lot of fathers, even, they're like, 'Yes, my daughter's thin,' when the daughter's like 5 or 6 months old."

An extreme case made headlines recently in Washington state, where parents Britainny and Sam Labberton were convicted of starving their baby out of fear she would become "fat" like her father.

Criminal mistreatment charges were brought after the infant gained just 1 pound in her first two months of life and her bottle was found to contain traces of laxatives. Court documents showed that after the infant was placed in foster care and gained weight, her mother's reaction was, "Oh my God, she's fat … I have a fat baby."