Even long after the birth of the offspring, breastfeeding has a positive influence on the mother’s weight. Researchers from the University of Oxford found this out in a wide-ranging study.
It is already known that breastfeeding ensures that young mothers can reduce their weight more quickly after pregnancy.
However, a UK study, conducted with 740,000 participants between 50 and 64 years, showed that breastfeeding can still have an impact on weight decades later.
It turned out that women who had breastfed had an average body mass index that was one to two percentage points lower than those who had not breastfed.
It doesn’t sound much but a one percent lower BMI in the western world could significantly reduce the frequency of diseases caused by obesity.
The subjects also indicated many other possible factors for obesity, but the effects of childbirth and breastfeeding were still clearly visible. The results show that these two factors affect body weight in the long term to a similar extent as socioeconomic group, smoking or other known risk factors.