The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1903-07-05
FAT BABIES ARE
NOT HEAL1H|EST
Accumulation of Flesh to Detri-
ment of the General System
Should Be Guarded Against.
PHYSICIANS OF ONE VOICE.
Active Infants Are Not Fat Ones,
but Are Stronger and Harder
and Stand Best Chance of
Growing to Maturity.

REPUBLIC SPECIAL.
New York, July 4.-If you have a great Zig
fat baby you need not crow over your
neighbor whose offspring does not tip the
scale at an abnormal figure.
The healthest baby is not the fat one.
and voicing the announcement of the I on
don Lancet, the heads of two of New
York's largest infant homes speak cut
against the supremacy of the fat baby in
regard to health
From the Chicago Maternity Hospital
comes systematized schedule of weights
which gives the normal weights of healthy
babies and the fat infant does not for Il
moment come under any of the heads
DIR. Thomas Lenox Kennedy, house ply
stefan of the New York Founding Hospital
in East Sixty-eishth street. this morning
said
1T is Impossible to give actual figures IN
regard to the proper weight of infants. but
1at does not mean that a child is healthy.
The weight of a baby at birth averages
from seven to eight pounds, but if a child
weighs more than that it in no way follows
that 1t is an unhealthy baby A child's bones
have great deal to do with its weight so
NAL babies there is good deal to be taken
for granted
NORMAL WEIGHT AT ONE YEAR.
10 say that a baby at 1 year should
weigh accurately as the Chicago statistics
state. twenty and one-half pounds.
is ridiculous. but is is safe to
say that a healthy babys weight al
year is twenty-one pounds. That is a
good average, though actual figures are
9e in, to give child with a large
frame and great deal of lime in his bones
vii! weigh a great deal more than a
| sma -boned infant and still not have very
much fat. If child does not gain over two
! Is doing well.
Up 10 the age of 6 months a baby should
sam sam from five to six ounces weekly. After
that period and up to its first birthday it
should gain from four to two ounces and
we can say approximately should weigh
twenty-onc pounds.
I'm the second year some babies will gain
SIX POUNDS and others will not but there IS
nothing alarming If a child does not quite
reach the six-pound increase.
FAT AT EXPENSE OF STRENGTH
THE reason that some babe, present
such file. healthy appearance to the eye,
with all their flesh. is because they have
been accommodating this fat to the detri-
ment of their general system. Heaith-food
babies are not as healthy as those raised
on natural food. There is too mu.h sugar
IN their system. and sugar is fat-produ-
cling food not a strength or muscle builder.
The. active baby will not be the alb
normally rat one | had case reported to
meet me OF an apparently healthy baby very
was only IA months old My opinion in re-
gard to that baby. and all others of a like
be taken i'll with pneumonia, or any disease.
in fact. 1t would succumb much quicker
than child of normal weight"
MISS Mary Wheeler. superintendent of the
Lexington
Fifty-f1fth street. while brought In contact
with sick babies. is continually called upon
said:
THE healthiest baby is the che that is
not too fat; Fat babies are abnormal and
why they should be put up as the standard
Of infant health ] can't see. At baby shows
the, the prize baby is generally the one mat
Weeas 5ee o Ie should mot 10 be- for
hood are nothing as compared with his
| leanc- brother.
week in, order to make progress. but a
healthy baby must make more progress
than that. While it is impossible to
baby should weigh. it is safe to say
that a normal infant 1 year of age
| weighs between twenty and twenty-one
thing never weighed over eight pounds
In its life. and when it died at the age
pounds and a half.
AVERAGE WEIGHT AT BIRTH
after the first year a baby does not
gain much as the first year. From
four to eight pounds in the second year
is normal.
"Two.thrds of the babies at birth
with regular increase in weight they
should weigh in the neighborhood of
twenty-one pounds when they are year
old.
Though l have never formulated chart
of babies weights, l can agree in a rough
way with the figures of the Chicago Ma
ternity Hospital. though / maintain that it
is ridiculous to state definite figures as to
what normal baby should weigh. as
there are SO many things to be taken into
consideration. such as bone structure.
Take the baby at seven pounds at
birth increasing approximately until It
weighs twenty or twenty-fOur pounds
at l year, in the next year it should gain
in the neighborhood of six or eight pounds.
A little superfiuous flesh is. no cause for
and half or five pounds should be added
to the child's weight. When the child is
4 years old thirty-five or thirty-seven
pounds shows healthy condition. unless.
of course, the frame of the child is so
large and bony that it must weigh more.
"Forty-one or forty-two pounds ia a safe
figure for 5-year-old baby. 6-year-old
healthy child should weigh forty-ftve or for
ty-sX pounds 1t is safe to put the figure
for S-year-ods at fifty-flve pounds; years
at sixty or siXty-one and 10 years at sixty
seven. though all these figures are more
or less subject to circumstances and en-
Flo