Do Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt Affect Young Children’s Body Composition?
Do Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt Affect Young Children’s Body Composition?
This study looked at whether the saturated fat in three common dairy foods, milk, cheese, and yogurt, is linked to young children’s body composition.
What We Did and Why We Did It
Researchers studied 267 children aged 1.5 to 5 years in the Guelph Family Health Study. Parents completed a detailed 24-hour diet record for their child, which researchers used to measure how much saturated fat each child got from three dairy foods:
- Cow’s milk
- Cheese
- Yogurt
They then compared these amounts with measures of the children’s body composition, including body mass index and body fat. Dairy foods are a common source of saturated fat in young children’s diets, but different dairy foods may affect the body in different ways, so researchers looked at each one separately.
What we found
What we can learn from this
Not all dairy foods were related to the body in the same way:
- Overall saturated fat from dairy, and saturated fat from milk on its own, were not linked to children’s body composition.
- Saturated fat from cheese had a small link to a slightly higher body mass index.
- Saturated fat from yogurt was linked to lower body fat.
This suggests that looking at individual dairy foods, rather than dairy as a whole, may give a clearer picture of how they relate to children’s health. More research is needed before any changes to dairy recommendations could be considered.
Limitations
This was a snapshot taken at one point in time, so it cannot show cause and effect. Most participating families were White and from higher-income households, so the findings may not apply to all families.
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