relationship between infant feeding and obesity and overweight in young adulthood

Objective: overweight and obesity described as the most serious public health issues that can lead to longterm consequences .this study conducted to investigate whether breastfeeding has a preventing effect on the prevalence of overweight and obesity in adulthood.materials and methods: this descriptive crosssectional study was performed on students in shahid sadoughi university of medical sciences (n=300) in 2013. data were collected through cluster sampling method. data was collected via a researcher made checklist. data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, ttest, chi square and anova in spss16 software.results: the mean ( ±standard deviation) of body mass index (bmi) of students were 21.91 ±0.4 kg/m^2. the mean bmi of men was significantly higher than women. the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 16.7%. based on the result, approximately 96.4% of the children had been ever breastfed; 11.1% of the children were breastfed for less than 6 months. researcher found no association between the duration or exclusivity of breastfeeding and obesity and overweight in later life.conclusion: the results of our study did not show a significant association between the duration or exclusivity of breastfeeding and bmi in young adulthood.