{"id":892,"date":"2026-07-08T08:07:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=892"},"modified":"2026-07-08T08:07:37","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T08:07:37","slug":"breastertons-fence-weve-meddled-with-breastfeeding-with-dire-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=892","title":{"rendered":"Breasterton\u2019s Fence: We\u2019ve Meddled With Breastfeeding With Dire Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a rather more concise way of expressing \u201cChesterton\u2019s Fence\u201d: a principle that urges us to exercise caution before we sweep away institutions, practices, buildings, and structures without fully understanding why they came to exist in the first place.<\/p>\n

Read more We Must Have a Rebirth of Instinctive Patriotism<\/a><\/p>\n

The fence is a homely example, befitting the great fat man himself, but real-world instances have been devastating and tragic and anything but quaint.<\/p>\n

Take China\u2019s \u201cFour Pests\u201d campaign, begun under Chairman Mao in the late 1950s. In the name of maximizing agricultural output, farmers were encouraged to massacre sparrows wherever they were found, since they eat grain. Less grain, lower yields\u2014no Great Leap Forward. But when the sparrow population collapsed as intended, insects like locusts ravaged the crops. Famine ensued. Millions died.<\/p>\n

The humble sparrow, it turned out, played an important role in keeping insects and other pests in check, a role that more than balanced the annoyance of a bit of lost grain.<\/p>\n

These days, if I reach for an example to illustrate Chesterton\u2019s fence, I might reach not for Chairman Mao and his little birds but for breastfeeding. Breast milk is the natural food for babies and infants, a food perfectly suited to a young child\u2019s nutritional needs, and what\u2019s more, it\u2019s free. Mothers produce as much as is needed, for as long as needed. Yes, a very small minority of women have trouble producing breast milk, and some children, including the author, have trouble latching on for one reason or another, but these are problems that can easily be remedied with breast-milk exchanges and bottle feeding. In short, there\u2019s no good reason why every child shouldn\u2019t be fed breast milk.<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t stop corporate food makers from selling mothers a product\u2014baby formula\u2014that they didn\u2019t and don\u2019t need. For decades, formula has been sold as a safe, healthy alternative to breast milk right from the get-go, as soon as the baby is born. In fact, it\u2019s often been marketed as a superior choice to breastfeeding, not just for the baby\u2019s health, but also for Mom too\u2014especially if she\u2019s a busy professional who\u2019s short on patience and time.<\/p>\n

Today, about 15 percent of American babies are never breastfed, and the majority\u2014around 70 percent\u2014have their feedings supplemented with formula during the first six months. Generally, rates of formula use are highest in the developed world, but the developing world is catching up fast. Global formula sales have more than doubled since the year 2000.<\/p>\n

Over the same period, more and more research has revealed exactly what formula-fed children miss out on. We know that breastfed children tend to have higher IQ scores and significantly lower incidence of allergic conditions than children who go without. Breast milk supplies nutritional compounds, including vital immune factors and sugars that encourage the growth of healthy bacterial strains in the gut that no shop-bought formula can replicate, although smart alecks are now trying to create \u201clab-grown breast milk\u201d in bioreactors, an endeavor that will also fail.<\/p>\n

In truth, though, there are still plenty of things we don\u2019t understand\u2014or are only beginning to understand\u2014about breastfeeding and its importance to children\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

A new study shows that breastfeeding may help infants develop self-control by giving them regular training in recognizing when they\u2019re full. This training translates to other impulses and behavior\u2014to what researchers call \u201cexecutive function\u201d\u2014and may have long-term ramifications, including reduced likelihood of overeating and obesity.<\/p>\n

Researchers have known for some time that early childhood is a key period in habit formation and the development of self-regulation. Until now, the role of breastfeeding in those processes had been unclear.<\/p>\n

Read more California AG Rob Bonta\u2019s War on Affordability<\/a><\/p>\n

It was hypothesized that breastfeeding might play a role in the emergence of self-control because babies take the lead. When bottle feeding, mothers have a visual guide to how much has been consumed\u2014the amount of liquid in the bottle\u2014and may encourage their babies to finish the contents even when they\u2019re full. Bottle-fed babies may consistently be trained to overeat. By contrast, when mothers breastfeed, there is no visual guide. They must wait until their babies choose to stop.<\/p>\n

The researchers behind the new study looked at data for nearly 600 infants from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. The children in the study were born before breast pumps were widely used, so the researchers could be certain the data would provide a strong comparison between breastfeeding and bottle feeding with formula.<\/p>\n

Mothers reported at regular intervals about their babies\u2019 diets, and the children were subject to a variety of cognitive tests at three-and-a-half years of age. The tests included several direct measures of executive function, including tests of inhibitory control. Mothers also answered questions about their children\u2019s daily behavior and signs of inattention and hyperactivity.<\/p>\n

The researchers found that breastfeeding predicted better inhibitory control at three-and-a-half years of age. The longer the child was breastfed, the better the score. Breastfed children also showed fewer signs of hyperactivity and inattention. Their mothers were less likely to report fidgeting, impulsiveness, and poor concentration.<\/p>\n

Importantly, there was no evidence of a link between breastfeeding and other forms of executive control, like working memory (holding information in your mind as you work through a problem) and cognitive flexibility (being able to change your thinking as a situation changes). This supports the hypothesis that breastfeeding primarily trains self-control.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also likely the benefits observed are a result of the superior nutritional content of breast milk, which supports brain development, but this may be less of a factor in this case than the process of repeatedly learning when to stop eating.<\/p>\n

The study has a number of lessons to teach us. The first, as I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, is the Chestertonian one: fools rush in where angels dare to tread, etc. By substituting formula for breast milk, corporate food makers interfered with early childhood development in ways that harmed children but may ultimately have benefited their own interests. The entire premise of ultra-processed food is that it should be \u201chyperpalatable,\u201d food scientist speak for \u201cimpossible to stop eating.\u201d In a very real sense, formula is preparation for a lifetime of eating foods that have been specifically designed to bypass the body\u2019s mechanisms of appetite and satiety. The latest generation of ultra-processed foods was born in the 1980s, when tobacco companies began branching out into food and used all the tricks of product development and marketing they\u2019d learned with cigarettes to create an entirely new market of captive eaters.<\/p>\n

And research bears this out: formula-fed children are more likely to end up overweight or obese and addicted to ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n

The second is a broader lesson for anybody who wishes to improve the health of Americans today. America\u2019s chronic disease nightmare is the result of enormous changes to not only what Americans eat, but also how<\/em> Americans eat. These changes have been thrust upon Americans from birth, and their effects ramify across an individual\u2019s lifetime by means of habits and preferences that escape conscious control, making them harder to arrest and reverse. If Secretary Kennedy really does want to Make America Healthy Again, he\u2019s going to have to catch consumers as young as the corporate food makers catch them and then set them on a different path, the one Mother Nature intended for them.<\/p>\n

Read more Report: Embattled Senate Candidate Graham Platner Won\u2019t Drop Out Unless He Can Choose His Replacement<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDon\u2019t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.\u201d That\u2019s a rather more concise way of expressing \u201cChesterton\u2019s Fence\u201d: a principle that urges us\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition"],"yoast_head":"\nBreasterton\u2019s Fence: We\u2019ve Meddled With Breastfeeding With Dire Consequences - Urban Economy news<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=892\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Breasterton\u2019s Fence: We\u2019ve Meddled With Breastfeeding With Dire Consequences - 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