6 juin, 2005 10:01
Milk may make for heavier kids, study finds
Mon Jun 6, 2005 5:55 PM ET
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children are urged to drink plenty of milk but a study published on Monday suggests that the more milk that kids drink, the fatter they grow -- and skim milk is a worse culprit than whole milk.
A survey of more than 12,000 children aged 9 to 14 showed that those who drank more milk weighed more than those who drank less.
"Children who drank the most milk gained more weight, but the added calories appeared responsible," the team at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard University in Boston wrote in their report, published in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
But there was a surprising finding.
"Contrary to our hypotheses, dietary calcium and skim and 1 percent milk were associated with weight gain, but dairy fat was not," they wrote.
It could be that the youngsters drink lower-fat milk more freely. Thus, it may not be milk itself but the calories in milk that are to blame, said biostatistician Catherine Berkey, who led the study, in a statement.
An eight-ounce (225-ml) serving of whole milk has 150 calories, one percent milk has 100 calories in an eight-ounce cup and skim milk has 85 calories.
"The take-home message is that children should not be drinking milk as a means of losing weight or trying to control weight," Berkey said.
An estimated 16 percent of U.S. children weigh too much.
SWITCHING TO WATER
Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, who worked on the study, said he was concerned about the heavy advertising of milk. Continued ...
