Running head: GOT MILK? YOU SHOULDN’T Got Milk? You Shouldn’t Colorado State University – Global Campus ENG102 – Composition II 1 GOT MILK? YOU SHOULDN’T 2 Got Milk? You Shouldn’t Marketers have solidified the phrase “Milk! It does a body good” into the minds of health conscious people. But is milk really good for you or is it just hype? This paper points out 2 major reasons why milk is not as good as the marketers will have people believe. Milk is seen as a health food that helps make bones stronger. In actuality, milk is full of calories and calcium, both of which will not help make a person healthy with strong bones. Facts about Milk Calories Calories are a measurement of energy and in order to maintain stasis within your body weight calories in must be equal to calories out. While milk has healthy aspects such as dietary proteins and fats it contains a lot of calories. In fact, milk as more calories than a can of coke ("Soda (Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Etc) Versus Milk Whole - Calorie, Fat, Protein, Fiber Information | SparkPeople", n.d.). This in and of itself is not necessarily bad. The issue that arises relates to milk being recognized as a health food. Because Milk is deemed a healthy food people will underestimate the amount of calories in it because of the "negative calorie illusion" (Forwood, Ahern, Hollands, & Marteau, 2013, p. 9). This illusion is particularly bad when someone is trying to be healthy and unaware that they are over-consuming calories. They may not lose weight, or they may gain weight which is not what a health food is supposed to do. Calcium One of the biggest reasons milk has been touted as “doing a body good” is for the bone strengthening effects. Higher calcium is said to have these bone strengthening effects. Milk contains high levels of calcium, therefore milk must strengthen bone. The issue in this argument is not that milk does not contain calories. The issue in this argument is that calcium has bone GOT MILK? YOU SHOULDN’T 3 strengthening effects. Studies have shown that beyond childhood calcium bares no significant alterations to the strength or density of bones (Feskanich, Willett, Stampfer, & Colditz, 1997, p. 996). The results of this study bring to light the fact that milk has no real impact on the strength of bone. Because the bone strengthening quality of milk was the reason for the slogan “Milk! It does a body good,” it stands to reason that milk does not do a body good. Conclusion The claim that “Milk! It does a body good” was an old milk industry commercial. It spawned the idea that milk gave you strong bones and was deemed by public opinion as a health food. As stated before, there are healthy aspects of milk such as dietary protein and fat. However, milk contains a lot of calories. Calories alone do not make a person overweight but the fact that milk is seen as a health food causes people to underestimate the amount of calories causing them to over-consume. Secondly, one of the biggest reasons for the phrase “Milk! It does a body good” was bone strengthening qualities caused by high calcium. However, calcium does not have any bone strengthening qualities making that claim false. The phrase would be more accurate if it were “Milk! It does not do much to the body.” GOT MILK? YOU SHOULDN’T 4 References Feskanich, D., Willett, W. C., Stampfer, M. J., & Colditz, G. A. (1997). Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study. American Journal of Public Health, 87(6), 992-997. doi:10.2105/AJPH.87.6.992 Forwood, S. E., Ahern, A., Hollands, G. J., & Marteau, T. M. (2013). Underestimating Calorie Content When Healthy Foods Are Present: An Averaging Effect or a ReferenceDependent Anchoring Effect? PLoS ONE, 8(8), 1-9. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0071475 Soda (Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Etc) Versus Milk Whole - Calorie, Fat, Protein, Fiber Information | SparkPeople. (n.d.). Retrieved July 20, 2014, from http://www.sparkpeople.com/food_vs_food.asp?food=92_98_soda-(coke,-pepsi,-sprite,etc)_versus_milk-whole
