Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers promotes milk’s health benefits to kids in an advertisement sponsored by the National Dairy Council. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has cited such promotions during presentations to elementary students.” credit=”
LODI — “How many of you have seen the ‘Got milk?’ ads with Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings?” Angie Edge of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board asked a roomful of elementary school students, invoking the names of two Green Bay Packers stars.
Hands shot up.
In Wisconsin — the nation’s top cheese producer, with more dairy cows per square mile than any other state — it’s hard to miss the message that milk does a body good. Especially if you’re a child.
That’s because the nonprofit milk board, funded by dairy farmers, spends about $950,000 a year on talks, concerts, posters and a website promoting dairy’s health benefits to school children. The group has challenged others’ claims, such as a recent Wisconsin billboard — sponsored by a national physicians group that promotes veganism — that featured the Grim Reaper to suggest eating cheese can be unhealthy.
But the state-supervised milk board sometimes overstates dairy’s health benefits, public records and interviews suggest.
An investigation by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism class found that the milk board promotes chocolate milk as a sports recovery beverage for children and teenagers, although related studies have mostly focused on adult athletes.
In some materials, the milk board also recommends children consume three to four servings of dairy a day, although the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends just three servings for teenagers and children over age 9, and less for those 8 and younger. Nutrition experts from Harvard University, New York University and the Mayo Clinic said three to four servings aren’t necessary.
A milk board spokesman defended the group’s conduct.
“Dairy’s role in a healthy diet for all Americans has long been established by the science and nutrition community,” said Patrick Geoghegan, the board’s senior vice president of corporate communications. “All the dietary guidance provided to students and consumers by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board… is based on sound, often peer-reviewed research that’s continually updated.”
Fact-checking the milk board’s health claims
Some statements checked out. But the Center also found some claims unsupported by science, and some where most evidence came from industry-funded studies.
Chocolate milk: Health food or junk food?
The milk board touts chocolate milk as a natural sports drink for children and teenagers. “Muscles fueled with chocolate milk are muscles fueled with nutritious energy,” states a brochure for parents.
According to the board’s most recent annual report, during the 2009-10 school year, it sent 90 percent of Wisconsin schools promotional materials such as a stand-up poster of Jennings, the Green Bay Packers wide receiver, holding a glass of chocolate milk, and planned to give six high schools chocolate milk for the 2010 football season.
A boy poses with a standup poster of Green Bay Packers player Greg Jennings holding a glass of chocolate milk. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board promotes the drink to children as a “natural sports beverage.” Photo: Wisconsin Dairy News” credit=”
The group reinforces the messages during school visits. “Have you heard the research that chocolate milk is the ultimate sports beverage?” Edge asked students last April at Lodi Elementary School, 25 miles north of Madison.
Several small studies — mostly funded by dairy groups — have found that drinking chocolate milk can enhance recovery after exercising. But they focused on adult athletes with higher calorie needs, not children. Almost 28 percent of Wisconsin children were obese in 2007, according to the most recently available data from the National Survey of Children’s Health.
The topic of flavored milks in schools has taken central stage in recent childhood obesity debates. Last June, the Los Angeles Unified School District became the largest in the nation to ban them from school menus. And this fall, Madison schools cut chocolate milk from the breakfast menu for elementary and middle students.
Researchers haven’t tried to pinpoint flavored milk’s role in obesity, partly because few children drink it exclusively, Yale University children’s obesity expert Marlene Schwartz wrote in an email interview.
But Jennifer Nelson, director of clinical dietetics at the Mayo Clinic, said offering children too many sugary foods can foster long-term preferences for sweets.
“My preference is taking the longer view of establishing dietary patterns,” she added. “Maybe we have chocolate milk Wednesdays, but why do we need chocolate milk every day?”
Dale Schoeller, UW-Madison nutritional sciences professor.” credit=”
Dale Schoeller, an obesity expert and nutritional sciences professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there’s no way to pinpoint a single food as a culprit in the obesity epidemic.
“Milk is a highly nutritious food,” Schoeller added. “It is one of the major sources of calcium in a child’s diet and a good source of protein.”
Schoeller said he wasn’t overly concerned about the frequency of chocolate milk served in schools, especially in light of new, lower-sugar chocolate milk formulas.
This fall, Dean Foods Company, which supplies milk to about 120 of Wisconsin’s 424 public school districts, switched to a reduced-calorie chocolate milk formula that’s 1-percent or fat-free with no high-fructose corn syrup, Dean spokesman Jamaison Schuler wrote in an email interview. A cup of the fat-free version has 130 calories and 22 grams of sugar — 40 calories and 10 grams of sugar more than plain milk.
When asked the reason for the new recipe, Schuler said that over the past decade, consumers have increasingly preferred less sugar, fewer calories and no high-fructose corn syrup.
Salud Garcia of Madison wasn’t impressed with the change, adding last spring that she was “dumbstruck” when she learned her daughter’s school, Gompers Elementary, had offered chocolate milk twice daily. “I couldn’t believe the schools would be serving so much sugar to kids,” said Garcia, founder of Madison Families for Better Nutrition, a small group that promotes healthier school district menus.
Ken Syke, Madison school district spokesman, said some parents had complained about chocolate milk, but the district hadn’t recorded how many. He said the district responded by telling parents that children need the nutrients in milk, and that some research has shown they drink less when flavored milk isn’t offered.
The milk board cites a 2009 study, funded by the dairy group that runs the “Got milk?” advertising campaign, that found school children drank 35 percent less milk when flavored milk was off the menu.
Marketers need to “stop sending the message that children will only eat healthy foods that have been reformulated with added sugar,” Yale’s Schwartz responded. “Sugared cereals, highly sugared yogurts and flavored milks are all examples of otherwise healthy foods that now have ‘kids’ versions’ heavily marketed to children and their parents.”
The state Department of Public Instruction doesn’t track chocolate milk sales, but spokesman Patrick Gasper said menu analyses suggest about 75 percent of milk sold in Wisconsin schools is chocolate.
“I have 24 kids in my classroom and at snack time, 23 have chocolate milk and one has plain,” said Tricia Kuluvar, who teaches sixth grade at Waunakee Intermediate School. “And that’s consistent every year.”
Three to four servings a day?
The milk board website states that “increased dairy consumption” leads to higher bone density later in life and a lower risk of osteoporosis, or weak, fracture-prone bones.
At Lodi, Edge told students they should drink three to four glasses of milk “every single day” for strong bones, while the board’s poster for students recommends “three-four glasses a day for a healthy and hard-working body.”
Milk board representatives gave similar presentations to 30,865 elementary students during the 2009-10 school year, and sponsored “iRock with Milk” concerts for more than 6,000 middle schoolers, according to the board’s annual report.
The milk board’s Geoghegan said dozens of groups and individuals support its recommendations, including the National Osteoporosis Foundation, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the American Medical Association.
In fact, these groups mostly frame their guidance in terms of amounts of calcium to consume, not a preferred source. For example, the Osteoporosis Foundation recommends children and teenagers get 500 to 1,300 milligrams of calcium daily, depending on their age. (A cup of milk contains about 300 milligrams.)
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes similar recommendations for calcium consumption and notes that good sources of the mineral include dairy products, dark green leafy vegetables, almonds and calcium-fortified orange juice, soy beverages and cereal.
The USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults and children ages 9 and older consume three cups per day of fat-free or low-fat “milk and milk products” — including fortified soy milk. The USDA recommends two-and-a-half cups daily for 4- to 8-year-olds and two cups daily for younger children.
Some research supports the milk board’s recommendations. A 2003 study on 28 teenage male weight lifters found that boys who drank three servings of milk a day for 12 weeks produced more bone mass than those who drank juice.
But several leading experts said so much milk isn’t needed.
“The so-called calcium requirement in the United States is based on very short-term studies (that are) irrelevant to long-term calcium needs,” Dr. Walter Willett, who chairs the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, wrote in an email interview about the federal government’s recommended dietary calcium levels.
Long-term studies show consuming more than one serving of dairy a day doesn’t further decrease the risk of weak bones or fractures, Willett added.
And the Mayo Clinic’s Nelson said even being vegan doesn’t increase that risk.
“We know that those individuals who avoid milk and animal products that contain calcium do just fine in terms of their growth, their development, and their bone health,” she said.
Nelson said that’s because vegan diets can be rich in other foods that are good calcium sources.
“The profile of the vegan diet also helps you conserve calcium,” she added. “The person who eats a lot of meat or a high animal-protein diet has a tendency to lose more calcium … it’s a metabolic process that’s quite complex.”
Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University and author of six books on food politics, criticized the milk board’s claims.
She wrote in an email interview: “I wonder how the marketing board explains why the highest rates of osteoporosis are found in countries that drink the most milk, or how cows manage to make huge bones that support their weight while eating mostly grass?”
“It’s hard not to be sarcastic about this kind of marketing,” Nestle added. “Milk is a fine food if you like it, but it is not an essential nutrient.”
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I would prefer my grandchildren to drink milk instead of the high sugar canned or pouch juices, soda’s, and “empty calorie” sport drinks. Milk is a better choice for their growing minds and for our slim pocketbook change. It is the only choice at my house, and they enjoy drinking this with their afternoon school snack. Did we forget to put this in the article? Adults need to make sensible choices for our children, and teach them how to eat a balance of good food.
Thank you for letting me comment on this article.
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