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Am I doing any harm by giving my boys whole milk?
Both are on the light side. Trevor will be 6 in April, Kayson is 3. I was actually instructed to keep Kayson on whole milk by the Dr. for extra calories. He gets whole milk + carnation instant breakfast 1x per day also. He weighs 28.5 lbs, Trevor weighs 38 lbs.
I know whole milk has a higher fat count, but could I be setting them up for high cholesterol? Should I just switch the older one to low fat?
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Re: Am I doing any harm by giving my boys whole milk?
Is it just the cholestorol that you are worried about? Here is a side by side comparison of the NI for whole milk vs skim
An 8 oz serving of whole milk contains:
Versus the same volume of skim milk:
Funny that there is more calcium in skim milk than whole. Interesting.
Kelly Monaghan's 5K - 5/15/11 - 3rd Place in AG
Walk the Talk 5K - 5/18/11 - 31:12 PR
Ridley Run 3.1 - 4/14/12 - 1st race of the year, 32:45
I think I would switch at least the older one to at least low fat milk if not skim at this point. And I'd try to give both of them "good" fats, not whole milk.
I know a lot of people who grew up drinking whole milk and can't seem to switch. So while NOW you may feel your kids are on the slim side and can use the extra calories, that won't probably be true 20 years from now, and if they love milk but think skim or even low fat is "gross" like some people, they will be swilling extra calories and bad fats.
But obviously your pedi or even a pediatric nutritionist would be a better source to base this decision on.
I at won't probably be true 20 years from now, and if they love milk but think skim or even low fat is "gross" like some people, they will be swilling extra calories and bad fats.
This is also a concern of mine, at least for my older boy at this point. A pediatric nutritionist and my pedi. have suggested we keep the 3 yo on whole milk for a while longer, but I worry about the long term risk if them becoming over weight due to their love of milk! I can't drink milk anymore due to becoming lactose intolerant in my late 20s, but when I did drink milk I always had 1%. Whole milk is like drinking cream to me!
ditto...
ds was 28lb at his 3yr... dd was almost 32lb at her 4 yr (a year ago, not sure about now???)
Just to give you my side of the story. I am very very hesitant to do extra calories in any form. My niece was always low weight her doctor encouraged extra calories in all forms. She ate so little it became a battle, it turned into feeding her what she would eat. Sadly now she is 8 and on the chunky side, her doctor is now concerned about her weight on the other side. This situation makes me very very leery to enourage any type of extra calories or fat. Although my kids are on the lower end of weight and ooff the charts for height, they are still growing and developing just fine so I will continue to offer healthy choices. I do believe it will all equal out in the end.
It probably also does not help that my MIL who is morbidly obese drinks like 8 glasses of whole milk a day and wonders why she can't loose weight?
I also can't stand whole milk as it taste like cream to me. We do skim.
I still buy my 3 y/o and 6 y/o whole fat everything- milk, yogurt, cheese, etc. They're just not slim, they're very much underweight. Also, they don't have a lot of it- at most maybe one serving each of milk and yogurt in any given day.
And yeah, I'm one of those adults who grew up on whole milk and still prefer it. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me: I eat full fat yogurt and drink whole milk but just am mindful to only consume a little bit. I might have a few cups of milk over the course of a week, but my dh who drinks skim milk will consume 2 gallons all by himself in that same time. I find that with full-fat dairy that I'm satisfied with just a small amount unlike my dh who obviously drinks his skim stuff like water (apparently because it tastes like water, lol.) The kids and I share our milk and generally only go through one gallon a week for all three of us.
Annelise 3.22.2007 Norah 10.24.2009 Amelia 8.7.2011
My kids are similar to yours, on the low end of weight to height. I give them whole milk with carnation. DS actually gets Boost Plus, which is 360 calories in 8 oz to prevent/treat malnutrition. I could give DD 2% milk with carnation, but it is just not worth it to me to have two gallons of milk in the fridge all the time, which ends up being 4 gallons, since it isn't like you run out before you buy another. I need room for food too.
My ped said the rec for skim milk is because of obesity and my kids have 0 signs of that. If DD's BMI hits 10%, I will consider taking her off :-)
I guess I'm not like that necessarily but I do hesitate to let my kids drink too many calories. My DD is a normal average and my son is light. They each get one half glass of juice a day and one milk drink. My son just started to drink cows milk but he mostly drinks rice milk. I think kids drinking glasses and glasses of any kind of milk is kind of gross and unhealthy.
On a side note it's not dietary cholesterol you need to worry about but saturated fat. The body does OK with dietary cholesterol (like eggs). But the cholesterol the body makes when it digests lots of saturated fat is what causes problems.
I don't care what kind of milk mine drink. We have skim at the moment. But like I said I'm careful that they don't drink a lot of it.
You're missing the most important part of this NI-the fat content. Whole milk has 7.9 grams fat, 4.6 of which are saturated fat. Skim has less than 0.5 grams of fat total. I switched both my boys to skim at 2 years because I do not want them to get an excess of saturated fat. Neither one was underweight, but even if they were, I think I would still have switched them to skim for the same reason.
I was wondering when the fat content was going to come up, I was too lazy to look it up. I agree even though both my kids are low weight not a fan of making it a habit to drink something with such a high saturated fat content.
exactly. And I know I drive my son mad. He's a terrible eater so I say all the time. "When you're hungry you.... EAT! and when you're thirsty you drink WATER!".
He has a habit of magically being SO thirsty for some calorie laden drink (milk included) if he doesn't like what I'm serving to eat.
Yeah, I didn't include the fat content because I thought that was kind of a duh factor. I just think it's interesting, that aside from the higher sodium (which still isn't that much), skim milk is just so much better for you nutritionally wise. My youngest DS is tiny, like barely on the charts, but I don't go above and beyond to give him added calories (he's lactose intollerant anyway). He has always been small and is growing right on his own curve. I'm just not a big fan of kids drinking calories anyway.
Kelly Monaghan's 5K - 5/15/11 - 3rd Place in AG
Walk the Talk 5K - 5/18/11 - 31:12 PR
Ridley Run 3.1 - 4/14/12 - 1st race of the year, 32:45
This is what I remember from when I read up on this when it was time to switch DD. At the time the AAP recommended that no child, regardless of weight, be on whole milk past age 2 due to the saturated fat, and kids who were low weight should get extra fat through "good fat" sources such as avocado and olive oil. I'm surprised that so many pedis are telling people to use whole milk, but maybe the recommendation has changed in the past couple years. I briefly tried looking on the AAP's website, but didn't find anything about the current guidelines.
Gee, thanks. That was so helpful!
I know. WTF?
This, sort of. 2% has the same amount of good fat as whole milk, but not the bad fat. Fat is important for growing brains, so you need some, but preferably just the good kind. Skim milk is taking it a bit too far, actually, as it doesn't contain enough of the good fat either. So, ideally, everyone (including adults!) should be on 2%. That is, at least, what I've garnered from my obsessive research when ML turned 2.
But 2% still has 3 grams of saturated fat per 8oz serving. If your child drinks a lot of milk in a day, that's quite a bit. I'd rather give my child skim and then give him some almonds or avocado to make up for the lost fat that his brain needs to develop. And really, I have read and also been told by my pedi that the extra fat for their brains isn't necessary after age two, so I do it more for overall health.