Milk Does Not Do The Body Good

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Recommended: the effects of advertisements on consumer behaviour.

The average person encounters a lifetime of innumerable decisions and nutrition is just one of them. If a person doesn’t understand how certain foods work simultaneously, then the terms calories, carbohydrates, cholesterol, high-fiber, and low fat, found on product packaging, are less than helpful. Media advertisements and the convenience of fast food chains can easily lead one astray from a healthy lifestyle, but when there are so many food choices, how does one ever know they’ve made the best decision? Worst yet, what if the information that the media is feeding the public, isn’t accurate?

Each year, according to the California Milk Processor Board’s executive director, Jeff Manning, approximately “27 million dollars is designated to marketing milk”. (Innovator, 1999) Most television viewers or magazine readers are conversant with the famous milk mustache advertisments and “got milk” slogan, yet the potential health hazards related to milk consumption remain unfamiliar.

Dating back to prehistoric times, milk has been a part of the human diet and never posed as a health risk. In fact, through the generations, it has been taught that milk was necessary to maintain and build bone density, especially for the intake of calcium. However, the concept that milk does the body good is challenged by more recent clinical research that reveals a link between dairy products, such as cow’s milk, that consist of genetically engineered growth hormones; contain harmful nutrients; and lead to various health risks. As these risks add up, the theory that milk does the body good is crumbling, much like the bones of those who drank milk with false expectations.

Before digging too deep into the perils of milk con...

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...Snyderman, N. L. (2009). Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat and The 101 Truths That Will Save Your Waistline and Maybe Even Your Life. New York: Crown Publishers.

Supermarket News. (2011). Data Points: Milk Consumption Declines. Supermarket News, 59 (45), p. 11.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (1994). Effect of Consumption of Whole Milk and Skim Milk on Blood Lipid Profiles in Healthy Men. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 59 (3), p. 612.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2011). What is Iron Deficiency Anemia? Retrieved from http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/ida/

USDA. (2011). Food Groups. Retrieved from http://www.choosemyplate.gov/foodgroups/dairy.html

Whitaker, J. (1998). Milk: Good or Bad? - Nature’s Perfect Food a Second Opinion. Retrieved from http://www.gotohealth.com/articles/read.cfm?article_id=30

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