Skim Milk Doesn't Prevent Childhood Obesity, Isn't Great for Weight-Loss and Is Basically Water

Good news for everybody out there who hates the white water: skim and low-fat milks aren’t as awesome for weight-loss as we were once told, according to new research.

The study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, found that “within every ethnicity and every socioeconomic strata…children who drank skim milk and 1% were heavier than those who drank 2% and whole.” The findings are surprising, since both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association recommend skim and low-fat milks for children 2 and up as a low-calorie option.

Leading the research team, Dr. Mark Daniel DeBoer, an associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, used the database of 10,700 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Birth Cohort to study the relationship between the type of milk the kids drank and their body mass index. His findings:

14% of the heavier 2-year-olds drank 1% milk compared to 9% of normal-weight youngsters, and 16% of the overweight or obese 4-year-olds drank the 2% milk compared to 13% of the normal-weight 4-year-olds. Overall, children who drank the 2% milk showed lower BMI scores than those drinking the 1% milk.
Even more puzzling…children who were normal weight at the start of the study and consistently drank the 1% milk showed a 57% increased chance of becoming overweight or obese by the they were 4.

One theory for the weight difference is that whole milk may help kids feel more feel, and so they eat less than those who drink the lower-fat milks.