The
American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children switch from
whole milk to a lower fat milk at age two. The conventional wisdom is
that getting children used to reduced fat milk will help keep them at a
healthy weight. Skim, 1%, or 2% milk has fewer calories per cup. It just
makes sense, doesn't it?
So here's where things gets
confusing. A new study of preschool-aged children published in the
Archives of Disease in Childhood, a sister publication of the British
Medical Journal, finds that low-fat milk was associated with higher
weight.
That's right, kids drinking low-fat milk tended to be heavier.
"We
were quite surprised" by the findings, Dr. Mark DeBoer told me in an
email. He and his co-author, Dr. Rebecca Scharf, both of the University
of Virginia, had hypothesized just the opposite.
But they found
the relationship between skim-milk drinkers and higher body weights held
up across all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. DeBoer says their
data also show that low-fat milk did not restrain weight gain in
preschoolers over time.
This is not the first study
to show such results, but the authors call for further research, as this
study did not take into account what types of food the children were
consuming or their total caloric intake. And scientists say sugary
drinks make a bigger difference in overall child obesity.
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