Got Milk: Got Problems

This morning, my breakfast consisted of a bowl of Frosted Flakes and milk. A few years ago, I probably would've mentioned drinking a glass of milk with breakfast, as well. Yet, I never drink a glass of milk anymore; I only have milk when I occasionally eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast. My mom started to worry about my lack of milk consumption so she encouraged me to take a Vitamin D/Calcium supplement. For babies and infants, milk has been shown to have a very positive impact on the body. However, recent studies have shown that after childhood, drinking milk seems unnecessary and possibly even more harmful than beneficial. Maybe my mom had no need to worry about my milk intake?

According to a study of over 100,000 people, milk was associated with no protection against fractures in men. Women who drank lots of milk actually had an increased risk of fractures. There have been several other studies, similar to this one, of hundreds of thousands of people, all reporting the same results: drinking milk as an adult does not lead to stronger bones or fewer fractures. This news shocked me. I had been told all my life that people should drink 3 cups of milk a day in order to make their bones strong and healthy. Apparently, that advice does not need to be followed.

With this information in mind, I don't feel that drinking 3 cups of milk is necessary at my age, let alone beneficial to making my bones stronger. In fact, there are almost 130 calories in 1 cup of 2% fat milk. Drinking 3 cups a day would mean consuming about 390 extra calories. That would cause me to feel more unhealthy than anything else. Nevertheless, I wonder whether these newly released studies will have an impact on many people who drink milk regularly. Since so many of us have been advised to drink 3 cups of milk per day as a part of a balanced diet, I'm not sure it's possible to convince people to stop drinking so much milk until more studies are conducted and news about milk becomes common knowledge.