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
When I grew up there were very few fat-reduced product and nobody had ever heard of “no-fat”. It simply didn’t exist. I remember one type of fat-reduced sausage available from meat-counters. It was made from veal, looked pale and was quite tasteless – it was recommended for people with stomach and liver problems. Everything was full-fat (even though we didn’t think of it as that it was just normal) and the milk we bought from the farmer always had a thick layer of cream at the top. In primary school there was not one kid that was really overweight and obesity was not an issue. Women tended to put on a bit of weight after the menopause but nobody worried about that. Some men had beer-bellies – the pub habituals – and leading figures in politics and industry tended to be “portly”. But generally people were slim.
For two years I was told I was the only parent in our school district requesting whole milk for my four kids in three different schools. And I had to fight to be able to do that, but it was in the school district rules that parents could request whole milk. This is now the second year parents cannot get their kids whole milk. When the USDA passed the “Healthy Child Initiative” in 2010, they started enforcing the rule of all items on school menues must be 30% or less fat by weight, or aparently the school districts don’t get whatever the USDA gives them now.
I want to start some kind of school food movement, starting small, like with milk, to force the USDA to listen up. I know there are general “improve school food” orgs out there, but most of them just want organic vegies, or local foods (again, all vegies) and I don’t really see any talking about whole milk. I don’t know how, or really have the time to start up something, but if anyone knows of a national organization focusing on getting whole milk back into schools, I want in! I know it’s not the best, but I can’t get my kids to take our raw milk to school, so they drink water instead at school now, and I’m really concerned because they have almost totally stopped drinking milk (the good full-fat raw milk we have) at home, too, and I’m thinking it’s related.
It’s funny, though. When my kids were able to get the whole milk, usually they had to ask the lunch lady to get it for them, since they “couldn’t” put it in the regular milk cooler and risk someone else buying one! But since my kids were the only ones getting it, and they had to get it by the case from the dairy, when it started to come to the pull date, my oldest son’s high school WOULD put it in the dairy cooler. Some of my son’s friends, seeing him with it, decided to try it, and stated how much better it tasted! My kids will not drink the thin, watery stuff, and I’ve totally banned them from the chocolate and strawberry flavored crap that makes up two-thirds of our school district’s milk purchases. They probably wonder why kids won’t drink the plain milk, but if they just offered whole milk again, I bet that would totally change within one year as word got around. But then, I don’t doubt the dairy industry is behind this scam, since they can make more money on the cream using it to make butter and other value-added products, especially now that people are starting to wake up to the value of butter and the evil of margarine.
this makes me laugh…I have been a huge fat eater my entire life (45, and look 30) I am skinny/toned and have no health issues, bone issues, anything.
I dont eat grains! Poison as far as I am concerned. I eat loads of organic meat, coconut oil, veges, butter and fruit.
Low fat or trim anything is denatured and just bad. I never fell for the hype, and people would always freak at the amount of fat and butter etc I consumed but couldn’t understand how I remained skinny and healthy…I would explain, they would not believe. This was 20 years ago. My children are healthy fit boys, no junk and nothing out of a packet, they never get sick. Love this way of living
LOVE your website Sarah! A Wealth of information! My family just jumped on the Nourishing Traditions bandwagon about a mobth agio and I cant believe hiw much i have learned about the RIGHT nutrition for myself and 5 children! removing milk from our diet has been the worst experience in all! What do you reccomend to those of us who do not have access to raw milk or just can’t afford it!? Raw milk runs for $8.99 for a half gallon in south O.C.,California.
The right kind of fats make us feel fuller sooner so we don’t eat toooooooo much…
Just an FYI to everyone about whole milk being unprocessed, all milk as it is processed (pasteurized and homogenized) is strained to be fat free. Then, they put fat back in to attain the correct percentages of fat for each type. That’s why it is more expensive for the milks with more fat than without.
I can assure you, the whole milk I get directly from a small dairy, has not had the fat taken out and put back. It is also not pasteurized or homogenized. That is the kind of unprocessed milk Sarah means.
Raw milk! It’s the way to go. Fresh from the cow and into my own glass milk bottles. No human handling, no processing, no taking away from the natural goodness that milk has.
Excellent research.Thanks for sharing!
Peggy, obviously I was talking about grain carbs as grains are at the bottom of the food pyramid. And yes, even whole grains should be eaten sparingly (a carb is a carb is a carb) after you soak, sprout, and freshly grind them yourself (and only if your gut has been healed first by GAPS). Grain carbs are evil and the enemy of the weight watcher. That is why they’re forbidden in GAPS because they interfere with the gut healing itself! As for fruit & veg carbs, Sarah suggests juicing only occasionally since it creates a blood sugar spike (too many carbs at once). Also, she says she doesn’t eat much fruit in the winter mainly summer. Carbs really do need to be watched. It’s healthy fats you can eat with abandon. We really need to de-brainwash ourselves about this.
This is the same milk (and brand) is given at my son’s pre-k. As soon he started drinking this “milk” he got rashes on his legs. I told them he was allergic to milk, so no more milk from him at school. I still have another uphill battle with snacks full of chemicals.
Not all carbs are equal, either. We tend to lump them all together. We call the overprocessed, not made from real stuff breads etc carbs, yet when people make the conscious choice to use only whole grains milled from unprocessed sources, then I don’t believe the carbs are bad. Also, CARROTS have carbs, too! And quite often, it is also the SUGAR in the overprocessed stuff we call bread that is what is unhealthy for us.