Breastfeed If You're Bavarian
Two new studies have found no evidence that breastfeeding helps prevent obesity, contradicting a slew of earlier studies which concluded the opposite. The first of the latest studies examined 2,250 Brazilian 18-year-olds as they prepared to enter military service, and discovered no correlation between their current body mass and how they were fed as infants.
The lead researcher, Dr. Cesar G. Victora, speculated that his team's results may have differed from earlier ones because of the respective time periods studied:
...we went for a longer period of time, until the age of 18. The children in the other studies were young adolescents, and maybe the potential benefits disappear with age.
And he left the door open for arguments that Brazil-specific or developing-country-specific factors may have played a role. However, the British researchers who conducted the second study also found no correlation, and noted that both breastfeeding and obesity have been on the rise in the US and Britain during the last decade.
Earlier research seemed to back up the theory that breastfeeding trains infants to stop eating when full (because of a "satiety element" in breastmilk). For instance, a 1999 study of schoolchildren in Bavaria found a significant difference between bottle-fed and breast-fed kids. In 2001, a study led by a Harvard Medical School team examined 15,000 children and came to similar conclusions.
Yet another recent study, this time by Scottish researchers in Glasgow, was even more gargantuan in scope; it examined some 32,000 kids, but only until age three. (However, they are still being tracked, so it will be interesting to see what the Glaswegians come up with in another decade). It also found a link.
Speaking as a non-expert, I don't get the sense that the alleged obesity-fighting power of breastfeeding is THE major issue driving parental choice in this area. But it is often mentioned by doctors as an added perk.
8:18:07 PM 
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