The 2 percent question
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- February
- 8
Most parents know about the recommendation to switch kids to 2 percent milk after the age of 2, the idea being that they get the same amount of nutrition with less fat and cholesterol. Many pediatricians further recommend going to 1 percent or fat-free milk after the age of 5.
Given the country’s obesity epidemic it makes perfect sense.
We never made the switch with our skinny and picky firstborn, simply because getting lots of fat into his rapidly lengthening frame seemed like a great idea.
Then as our family grew and his two sisters went from baby to toddler, it seemed easier to just buy the same gallon for everyone.
Now the youngest is 2 and not terribly picky, (I should say, wasn’t before the terrible twos hit!) it’s probably time to revisit the milk question.
It’s certainly easy enough to buy a gallon of this and a gallon of that, but I’ve also read some arguments that absent obesity concerns, full-fat might actually be best beyond the age of 2.
Parents, what did you do?
(Journal News file photo)
This entry was posted
on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am by Katie Ryan O'Connor.
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We go full fat in our house. I’ve been down this road a few times, worrying about what is best for our little guy, almost 5 now. He is showing no signs of obesity at all. He’s a good eater and eats a variety foods and is long and slender. But we don’t ignore the issues in our house. Our fight against the prospect of obesity lies in avoiding refined sugars and reducing highly processed foods that include little or no nutritional value [breads and pastas for example]. Well, except on movie night. What’s movie night without popcorn!
I read somewhere recently, and I wish I could remember where[!] ... that low fat milk is proportionately higher in sugars, lactose after all is a sugar, and that our body deals with it better when its fat is included. Perhaps it gives less of a sugar spike? Anyway, our research, for what it is worth, has lead us to provide foods as close to their natural form as possible. Within reason of course. Because what’s better than having a freshly baked cookie with a cold glass of creamy, whole milk on a lazy Sunday afternoon, once and awhile.
2 percent is nothing but crap. It’s all about portion control. We limit the amount of milk intake. That’s about it.
I hate that everything today is geared towards the obese. I don’t like sugar substitutes and all this other garbage.
We are slowly losing our choices. even fast food is getting ridiculous. If people are dumb enough to eat it more than once a day or twice a week that’s their fault. why do the rest of us have to suffer?
oh yeah because the politicians want to wag the dog. Look what we are doing for you health, just don’t look at what we did to screw up the economy.
We did the recommended whole milk for the kids until they were two, then switched to 2%. Now we’re all 1% milk people, but more for personal preference than anything else.
When our little guy turned 2, we asked the pediatrician if it was time to switch him off whole milk. The doc’s response was that our son should be on the same low fat diet my wife and I are on. We looked at each other and wondered if he had the wrong couple. Anyway, the doc recommended skim but said we could wean him off the whole. We’ve been on 2% for a month and will probably switch to 1% thereafter. I doubt we’ll switch to skim because a few grams of fat here and there won’t hurt as long as the overall diet is sound. I never considered what jackie mentions about lowfat milk containing more sugar. Doesn’t it contain more calcium? If so, it would make sense that an equal portion of milk, minus the fat, would contain more of everything else than whole, no? Now I feel like I need to do some more research.
OK, yah, I didn’t explain that very well. I didn’t mean that skim milk actually has more sugar in it than whole milk but that by removing the fat, the impact of the sugar is greater. I just did a little googling and found this site where they speak briefly about how the glycemic index [converts to sugars more quickly] is greater for skim milk because it doesn’t have the fat as a buffer.
http://www.querycat.com/question/a30314d69ecd6fdff24b8fed004fb763
Maybe that helps a little bit? I’m sure there’s loads of other information out there on this topic.
: )