Shifting my View

[Koroviev]

I think by now we've all heard the arguments that children who are not spanked and children who are breastfed have (significantly) higher IQ scores, and I was just thinking that this may be the wrong way to look at things. What this argument does is place the children who are formula fed and/or who are spanked as the "norm" and higher IQ is simply a benefit you get if you do something different. When in reality these children are not the "norm" and these things seem to cause a deficiency in one way or another. It's similar to looking at zoo animals who have been caged their entire life and then looking at those same species in the wild and saying the wild animals are acting abnormally.

 

What I've realized is these arguments should be shifted to say that hitting your children and/or not breastfeeding results in children with (significantly) lower IQ scores. I think looking at these arguments in this light makes them much more accurate than what I seem to hear a lot of people (not necessarily here) saying at the moment.

[Will Torbald]

I agree, but I haven't seen the argument that IQ "increases" because you breastfeed a baby either. If there are people saying that, then yes, the semantics is backwards.

[Koroviev]

I agree, but I haven't seen the argument that IQ "increases" because you breastfeed a baby either. If there are people saying that, then yes, the semantics is backwards.

 

for reference here's couple articles including the one I was referring to:

http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=482695&resultclick=3

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11988057

and a whole bunch of assorted long term benefits studies here:

http://www.llli.org/cbi/bibbenefits.html

[Jaeger]

Wouldn't it be that baby formula decreases IQ and breast feeding would just keep it at its normal level?  

[Koroviev]

Wouldn't it be that baby formula decreases IQ and breast feeding would just keep it at its normal level?  

 

exactly