We have known this for a long time clinically, but now the research is backing it up. Children of all ages infants to teenagers whose food intake is restricted or who restrict themselves, get fatter not thinner. Give them the help they need to eat well and grow properly. Obesity can be prevented from birth or by doing an excellent job of feeding. Children are naturally accurate and resourceful at eating the amount they need and growing in the way nature intended until grownups spoil it.
Infants can eat well and grow properly when parents feed on demand.
A toddler or preschooler will stop in the middle of a bowl of ice cream if he has had enough. Satter illustrates, sometimes parents, as well as babies, have interference. Kenny's eating and weight problems started at birth, when he was so seriously ill that his parents feared he would not survive. Most children will fight back and grow less well when parents get pushy. Kenny went along.