Table 1.

The controversial association between breastfeeding and childhood obesity

Study	Country	Years	Type of study	Number of participant	Supporting or declining association
Verstraete et al. [13]	United States	2014	Cohort	196	Breastfeeding for more than 1 year has a protective effect on the development of obesity in early childhood
Li et al. [199]	United Kingdom	2003	Cross sectional	2584	No evidence was found to show that breast feeding influenced BMI or obesity
Anderson et al. [14]	United States	2013		15,141	Shorter durations of breastfeeding is correlated with the prevalence of early childhood overweight and obesity
Jwa et al. [16]	Japan	2014	Cohort	Boys = 21,425 girls = 20,147	Breastfeeding, even for short duration, provides a protective effect against obesity in late childhood, especially for boys
Von Kries et al. [200]	Germany	1999	Cross sectional	9357	Breastfeeding might reduce obesity in childhood and consequently adulthood
Burdette et al. [201]	United States	2006		313	Breastfeeding and the timing of the introduction of complementary foods were not associated with adiposity at age 5 years
Gillman et al. [202]	United States	2008	Cohort	1,110 mother–child pairs	The lower risk of overweight at age 3 years is correlated with healthful levels of maternal smoking during pregnancy, gestational weight gain, breastfeeding duration, and infant sleep duration
Kwok et al. [25]	Hong Kong	2010	Cohort	7026	Breastfeeding was not shown to be associated with child adiposity
Kramer et al. [27]	Canada	2007	Randomized Controlled Trial	17,046	Breastfeeding did not result in reducing the measures of adiposity in healthy breastfed infants