London - Toddlers given a bedtime bottle are far more likely to be overweight when they are older, research shows.
Those regularly fed a bottle of milk when they are two years old are 30 percent more likely to be obese by the time they are five and a half.
Researchers warn that parents who continue to give children a bottle at an age when they have started eating solid foods are overfeeding them.
They say that an 8oz bottle of full-fat milk contains 150 calories - 12 percent of the energy a child aged between one and two needs in a day.
Mothers are advised to gradually wean their babies off either breast milk or formula milk from the age of six months.
But many carry on giving children bottles of milk - either formula, or whole or semi-skimmed - just before bedtime to help them sleep, even when they are on solid food.
American scientists assessed almost 7,000 children at regular intervals when they were nine months old, two, four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that almost a quarter of children - 22.9 percent - still being given bottles when they were two were obese by the time they were five and a half, even after accounting for other factors such as the mother’s weight and the child’s birth weight.
That compared with just 16 percent of children not being given a bottle.
The researchers say midwives and GPs should encourage mothers to wean their babies off bottles completely once they reach their first birthday.
Nearly one in ten children are obese when they start primary school and a fifth are obese by the time they leave aged 11, according to the most recent NHS figures. - Daily Mail