<p>Giving kids skimmed or one per cent fat milk could lead them to become overweight, a new study has found. US researchers found healthy-weight two-year-olds who regularly drank skimmed milk were 57 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese at four, as those who drank full-fat milk.<br /><br /></p>.<p>They asked parents of almost 11,000 two-year-olds what type of milk they gave them: skimmed, one per cent fat, two per cent fat, or full-fat. They then followed up the children two years later, The Telegraph reported. All the children were participants of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the long term health of a representative sample of US children born in 2001.<br /><br />Parents with overweight children might like to give their offspring low fat milk to help curb their waistlines, but the researchers said this logic might be misplaced.<br /><br />Full-fat milk may satisfy children’s appetites better, thereby making them less likely to raid the cupboard for unhealthy snacks like biscuits and cakes, they argued.<br /><br />“One per cent/ skimmed milk does not appear to restrain body weight gain between two and four years of age,” authors noted in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. <br /><br />The Department of Health in UK advocates children “gradually move to semi-skimmed milk as a main drink” from the age of two “as long as they are eating a varied and balanced diet and growing well”.<br /><br />However, it warns against giving skimmed or one per cent milk as the main drink until they are at least five, because these “don’t contain enough vitamin A and skimmed milk doesn’t contain enough calories”. <br /></p>
<p>Giving kids skimmed or one per cent fat milk could lead them to become overweight, a new study has found. US researchers found healthy-weight two-year-olds who regularly drank skimmed milk were 57 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese at four, as those who drank full-fat milk.<br /><br /></p>.<p>They asked parents of almost 11,000 two-year-olds what type of milk they gave them: skimmed, one per cent fat, two per cent fat, or full-fat. They then followed up the children two years later, The Telegraph reported. All the children were participants of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, which tracks the long term health of a representative sample of US children born in 2001.<br /><br />Parents with overweight children might like to give their offspring low fat milk to help curb their waistlines, but the researchers said this logic might be misplaced.<br /><br />Full-fat milk may satisfy children’s appetites better, thereby making them less likely to raid the cupboard for unhealthy snacks like biscuits and cakes, they argued.<br /><br />“One per cent/ skimmed milk does not appear to restrain body weight gain between two and four years of age,” authors noted in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. <br /><br />The Department of Health in UK advocates children “gradually move to semi-skimmed milk as a main drink” from the age of two “as long as they are eating a varied and balanced diet and growing well”.<br /><br />However, it warns against giving skimmed or one per cent milk as the main drink until they are at least five, because these “don’t contain enough vitamin A and skimmed milk doesn’t contain enough calories”. <br /></p>