A new study published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, a sister publication of the British Medical Journal, reports that low-fat milk is associated with higher weight in preschoolers. Kids drinking low-fat milk tend to be heavier than those drinking whole milk. Kids drinking skim milk were found to be the fattest of all.
The findings call into serious question the long-held recommendation of pediatricians that parents switch children to low-fat milk at age 2 in order to reduce the risk of weight problems.
It seems this misguided pediatric advice is producing the exact opposite of what was intended.
This large study of 10,700 preschoolers involved interviewing the parents when the children were 2 years old and again at 4 years old. The researchers took direct measurements of each child’s height and weight in order to accurately calculate BMI (body mass index) at both ages.
Researchers found that the kids who drank skim (1%) milk had the highest body fat regardless of race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.
The 2% milk-drinking children had the next highest BMI (body mass index) followed by the whole milk-drinking children who were the leanest of all.
Dr. Mark DeBoer said in an email to NPR that he and his co-author Dr. Rebecca Scharf, both of the University of Virginia, were “quite surprised” by the findings as they had hypothesized just the opposite.
Dr. DeBoer added that the data also indicates that the use of low-fat milk did not restrain weight gain in preschoolers over time. Â He speculated that if you feel fuller after drinking full-fat milk, “it may be protective if the other food options are high in calories.”
In other words, drinking a glass of whole milk for dinner instead of low-fat or skim milk may prevent a child from eating an extra cookie or two later.
Two Other Studies Indicate Lowfat and Skim Milk Make Kids Fatter
This is not the first study indicating that low-fat and skim milk leads to heavier children.
In 2005, a study published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine concluded that skim and 1% milk were associated with weight gain in children aged 9-14, but dairy fat was not.
A more recent study in 2010 published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that switching from whole milk to reduced-fat milk at age 2 years did not appear to prevent overweight in early childhood.  Â
Take-home lesson for parents? Â Give your kids whole milk as Grandma and Grandpa did. Â Taking the fat out of milk doesn’t help one iota in reducing a child’s chances of overweight and obesity. Â On the other hand, giving a child whole milk appears to be protective of a healthy weight in childhood!
Learn More About Healthy Fats to Stay Slim
Want to learn more about what fats to eat and what fats to avoid to stay slim and healthy? Â Check out my eBook Get Your Fats Straight – Why Skim Milk is Making You Fat and Giving You Heart Disease and Other Surprising Facts About Fats.
Sources
Whole Milk or Skim? Study Links Fattier Milk to Slimmer Kids
Longitudinal evaluation of milk type consumed and weight status in preschoolers
Milk, dairy fat, dietary calcium, and weight gain: a longitudinal study of adolescents
Prospective association between milk intake and adiposity in preschool-aged children
Don’t tamper with ANY food.
Because the body overcompensates when you deny it the fat it wants and knows it should be getting. It knows that milk should have had fat in it so it will make you hungry to eat more calories until it gets the fat it wants. Since Americans put carbs at the bottom of the food pyramid when they should be at the top and eaten sparingly, we get fat.
Man-made or checmical type fats are NOT good for you, though!
and there are more carbs in low fat/skim products!
Fat doesn’t make you fat…carbs do
– No, Carbs do not make you fat.
– An over abundance of ANY food group on a daily basis will cause weight/medical problems.
– The absolute complete removal of any food group from your diet will cause weight/medical problems.
– The following of every new fad & trying to keep up with every new study related to food & it’s consequences, good & bad, will cause weight/medical problems.
When are people going to realize that the problem in America is our tendency to be Gluttons. Gluttons in every aspect of our being. We want what we want, when we want it, to the degree we want it with no restrictions whatsoever regardless of the consequences.
Europeans have not even 1/100th of the Weight problems we, as Americans, have. I was always made to feel strange when I went out with friends because I didn’t eat they way they did. I am first generation American on my Dad’s side & second on my Mom’s. I never knew what it was to have junk food, soda or treats on a daily basis & I never ate the same amount of food that I saw my friends eating. I would always have to try to stuff down this big full plate of food when I would eat at a friend’s because I was always to not eat what you are offered in another’s home is an insult. Friends would come to house & think we were strange because instead of having a table full of stuffed dishes we would four or so small courses that, in the end, was still not as much as their one plate. There was always salad as the last course not the first. It was the last because the ruffage is what help to push the protiens, carbs & fats through your digestive system. I am 42 & to this day when I go to McDonald’s I get a kids meal – not a Big Kids meal but just the original small kids meal. It satisfies me without complaint. Very rarely has anyone in my family encountered true digestive issues or weight problems.
All anyone needs to do, young or old, is eat in moderation, breathe & be mobile. You can eat , shot of any food allergies, anything you want provided you eat in moderation & make sure that you spend some time each day being active. It is quite simple. You want cake, gray have a PIECE of cake not half the cake just one piece & not every night just on e or twice a week. You want Soda, great have soda – a small 8oz. Glass of soda once in a while. Moderations & Movements – a whole new meaning to “M&M’s”.
I doubt very much that the American society will subscriber to the notion of moderation as we seem to be too selfish & always looking for the easy way out. That’s why everyone jumps on the Fad bandwagon & actually sucks up the mess they spend all day reading about in a bunch of contradictory studies. Wow, what we put our minds, bodies & children through all in the name of “HEALTH”…
Maybe, Just Maybe, someday we will come to our senses…
I would politely ask you – please speak for yourself! I am a first generation American and I STILL don’t drink soda or eat at McDonalds. Neither do most of my friends and they are mostly very American. If I see someone who eats differently, I don’t judge them. If someone asks about how we eat, I tell them. And I do finish what I am served as a guest, there is nothing more WASTEFUL than not finishing a meal made from quality from scratch ingredients. It’s the disposable/McDonald’s cheap food mentality that contributes to a lack of healthy eating and an immediate gratification type mentality.
If Americans are so offensive, why don’t you go back to Europe?
Wow! Why?
all the farmers know that skim milk fattens the hogs!
Low fat milk does not occur in nature. I hope that someday our institutions will learn that the unmodified foods of Nature are the best for us. These are the foods humans have eaten for uncounted thousands of years, and our bodies have adapted to them.
They are just now finding this out, or are people finding this out, and the are forced to report on it… Just like CBS recently came out with artificial sweeteners making people fat. Many people have been saying this for decades… They are just now listening…?
Quite surprised? I’m sure they were. Eye roll.
It’s so frustrating how hard it is to find full fat dairy anything at the store, even organic. Sometimes I want to splurge on some store bought yogurt. But I don’t want 0% fat. Eating fat keeps me skinny (and in a better mood).
I totally agree!! 99% of all yogurts in the grocery store are lowfat or nonfat. Blech… Amazing: decades after the lowfat theory was debunked and people still believe that garbage (and eat it, too!).
I, too, hate having to buy yogurt that is low-fat or no-fat. Which is why I was happy to find Stonyfield’s FULL fat yogurt! It is, of course, made for babies — apparently babies are the only ones allowed to have full fat dairy. Eye roll. Anyway, it is called Yo Baby. It’s organic and full fat. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to make plain yogurt. But the flavors they make are pretty good. I’ve tried the peach, banana, vanilla, and (my favorite) apple & sweet potato. By no means do I consider this yogurt to be as healthy as homemade yogurt from raw milk. But it is nice to know I can get store-bought yogurt that is full fat and organic.
If you can find Fage Greek yogurt where you are they have a whole fat version that is delicious.
I can get Stoneyfield Organic Plain Whole milk yogurt in the 32 oz. containers around here (NW Ohio). It’s fabulous as the top inch or so is like creme fraiche–and I use it as such. It is *the* best fruit “dressing” when mixed with cut up fruit. If your local grocer sells Stoneyfield, as if they’ll carry the larger sizes. We have a couple of smaller locally owned grocers who are able to bring in requested products within a few days and encourage customers to suggest items.
I thought I’d found a full-fat grass-fed yogurt, but alas, someone said it’s not 100% grassfed and I just checked the label and it contains whole AND skim. Darn.
It’s Kalona Super Natural Organic 5% Plain Yogurt:
Ingredients: Organic Cultured Grade A Milk, Organic Skim Milk, Organic Cream.
It’s a step up, but not quite what we’re all hoping for.
As for the reaction of the researchers:
All the information people could ever want about the low-fat myth is out there for the world to see. Old cherished myths die hard, I guess.
trader joe’s has organic whole milk yogurt too.
Unfortunately, the Trader Joe’s brand of whole milk yogurt contains pectin from apples and citrus peels and since these are not listed as organic, one wonders if these are laced with pesticides due to the heavy spraying of non-organic citrus and apples.
I wonder why they feel the need to add such an ingredient anyway.
Whole Foods carries a brand I love: Erivan. It’s whole fat, lightly pasturized, unflavored, small farmer and grass fed. It’s the closest store-bought yoghurt to my own homemade raw milk yoghurt in flavor, texture and quality. http://www.erivandairy.com