This in the news about milk has thrown me a bit (take children over 2 off full fat milk)

[TsarChasm]

This

Mine still have full fat milk and eat a good diet. (All beanpole-ish in stature)

I buy whole milk specifically for them. Are the Government's Food Standards Agency getting a bit ott about this? It seems the wrong thing to tell people to remove from their (or their children's) diet to me.

It does have, though not sure how much more and I don't know how it works, maybe if you remove the fat your left with more of other things? Some varieties of skimmed milk do have added calcium to.

semi-skimmed and skimmed milk have less fat soluble vitamins (vitamins A and D) so although it may have more calcium it has less vitamins. 3.5% fat is not high fat though so I dont think full fat milk is a the big baddie - it is what is made from it that causes problems e.g. chocolate, cheese (if you eat loads), etc

I did know that you could switch to semi-skimmed from the age of 2 and we recently did switch and dd(5) and ds(2) drink it quite happily.

Oh FGS

We all had full fat milk free at school. We were all thin as herrings. For the very reasons mentioned in the article - we had less junk food and ran around all the time.

So the answer is not to start pushing low fat cheese filth on your kids, but to ensure that they don't gorge on fast foods and sit on their arses all day.

This is basically what the article says! So the headline is just utterly ridiculous scare-mongering. Grrrrrr.

I'm in Holland and they advise semi-skimmed from a year , DD is on full fat (as are we). I strongly believe that the food stuffs we've evolved to eat are are likely to be composed in a way that makes their nutrients most readily available to us IYSWIM.

Too much fat in the diet is obviously a bad thing but FFS. Less (but still full fat) milk and more calcium from other sources would surely be better advice for the chunkier children amongst us?

I remember reading that women who had low-fat dairy were more likely to have problems conceiving.

Right. I am going to see if I can find the fat content of human breast milk and whatever that is will be the optimum and we will all be guided by the answer

righty ho

So BM gets higher fat content over the months - maybe as the child is growing and needs it??

"They found a startling difference: the fat content in the mothers who had breast-fed for longer periods of time (12-39 months) was 17.5 percent, versus only 5 percent in the short-term group (2-6 months)."

So whichever way you look at it, what humans produce naturally for their children is way way fattier than even full fat cow's milk. So full fat milk and lots of running around is the way forward.

Ithankyou

That's a fascinating article, tumtumtetum. Intriguing suggestion that it's actually the presence of cholesterol in breast milk as opposed to the absence of it in formula that protects people from heart disease in later life.

My 2 both have ffm - age 6 and 2 - we dotn buy different milk so all have full fat milk - it tastes better on my cheerios and in my coffee so im not in a great rush to switch down to semi though maybe i should before i have my coronary....

Can I just clarify this is new advice; or at least it is presented in a different way.

The advice prior was today was that you should not use semi skimmed before the age of 2; and you should not use skimmed before the age of 5. I.e. there is nothing wrong with full fat beyond two...but there is a problem with semi before 2.

The NEW advice (according to the first paragraph of that article) is that you should not use Full Fat beyond 2 - i.e. you should switch...rather than it being a choice.

however if you read the whole article Dr Hignett says that they should switch to full fat after the age of 2, but doesn't really say that it has to be on their second birthday....more a case of "when it is convenient for you but sooner s probably better"...whcih is part way between teh first and second scenario I have just described.

Basically the article is contradictory.

Thanks for that link, tumtum, fascinating stuff!!

Fab article tumtum!

Aranea - IMHO it's entirely possible (and quite likely) that simply adding cholesterol to formula wouldn't have the same effects as receiving it through human milk. Just like it's important to provide vit C with iron for that to be absorbed properly it's probable that the cholesterol needs to be received in combination with one or more other factors to work as intended. In nutrition combo of nutrients/constituents is almost always key to their effectiveness.

...In nutrition the combo...

bloody lazy journalism

With a new recommendation every day, I predict that soon we will just give water to our children and hope for the best!

DD has high cholesterol and as such has been on semi since the age of two. If she didn't have this condition she'd probably still be on full fat.

As usual, the DM are scaremongering.

We ALL drink full-fat milk (no way I'm buying 2 or more different types).

Is there really a huge difference anyway?

I would like to see some figures about fat content in milk vs cakes, chips/crisps etc.

Also, do we know if it is "good" or "bad" fats?

Too slow - thank you all for the extra info

re 'good' and 'bad' fat

in general animal fat (red meat, sausages, dairy, lard) is saturated and hence bad
fish oils and vegetable fats (olive oil, sunflower oil) are unsaturated and hence good (as far as fat goes)

there are exceptions:

Processed food (pies, cakes, biscuits) are often made using cheap margarine that is vegetable in origin (cause it's cheap) but is artificially 'saturated' with hydrogen to make it more solid and easier to use / store / transport, so it ends up as 'bad' as lard.

i was always taught (by my mum) it was full fat untill around the age of 10 because children exert more energy and that it was good fat anyway? (and were all thin as twigs) but if this isnt so then im in trouble as im always on to dh about why does my dss's mum give him fat free milk yogurt ect when he's a growing energetic young boy with no weight issues. all mine have full fat

Its not as if full at milk is particularly high in at anyway though, is it?

4% or thereabouts - way lower than all sorts of foods advertised as 'low fat'.

I thought Hydrogenated fat had been banned! If they have not they should start with that before giving us the advice to give up full fat milk for children!

I knew before I even opened the Link it would be the DM.

DH and I had an enormous debate yesterday about the inappropriate influences of the newspapers, and in particular the Daily Mail in our lives, how they feel the need to splash everything on the front pages about how we raise our children, views on this and that, they decide what will govern the thoughts and opinions of many many people, those who already question their abilities to raise their own children. It is manipulative, sensationalist, and can even be dangerous if they publish articles like this, and then next week change them again, then again, then again.

This really just adds to the fact that the DM thinks it is some kind of God/the government.

Funnily enough, we were considering reducing to semi-skimmed, but wondered at the need. Now, if I have ever heard an argument for keeping her on it, the fact that the DM wrote this article is it