Kick the (baby) bottle habit to reduce chance of childhood obesity

A new study has found that children who are still drinking from a bottle at two years old are at a greater risk of being obese at five years old. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded a study that was carried out by Temple University researchers and published in The Journal of Pediatrics. Study details:

• Data on 6,750 children analyzed
• 22% of the children were "prolonged bottle users" -- "still using a bottle at age 2 as their primary drink container and/or were put to bed with a bottle with a calorie-containing beverage, usually milk."
• Of the prolonged bottle users, 23% were obese by five years old

Overall, children who were prolonged bottle users were 33% more likely to be obese by the time they were five years old. The American Academy of Pediatrics has always recommended children be weaned off of bottles 18 months old. The AAP suggests parents begin the transition from bottle to cup beginning at one year old. I've always thought that the major concern was a child's teeth, but apparently, there's a lot more at stake.

A 2-year-old girl of average size who drinks an 8-ounce bottle of whole milk at bedtime would get about 12% of her daily calories from that bottle, says Rachel Gooze, lead author on the study.

"This is a practice that has been discouraged for years because it promotes tooth decay, and this is one of the first studies to show that it may also promote obesity," says pediatrician Robert Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics at Temple and study co-author.

(Source: USA Today)

If your child used a bottle, at what ate did s/he transition from the bottle to the cup?