Children given soya milk don’t grow as tall

CHILDREN brought up on almond and soya milk are shorter than youngsters who drink just cow’s milk, a study has found.

The plant-based products have become increasingly fashionable, with many extolling their health benefits, and others turning to them because of an intolerance or dislike of cow’s milk.

But the study found that children who drink non-cow’s milk, including plant-based milk drinks and milk from other animals, are growing up shorter than those given the traditional drink.

The research also suggests that children who drank a combination of cow’s milk and non-cow’s milk daily were shorter than average.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, examined more than 5,000 children between the ages of two and six. A three-year-old drinking three cups of soya or almond milk daily was on average more than half an inch shorter than one given three cups of cow’s milk.

Dr Jonathon Maguire, the lead author and a paediatrician at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, said drinking three cups of non-cow’s milk daily could move a child to the 15th from the 50th percentile for height, on growth charts. The study did not examine the reasons for the differences.

However, researchers believe that children who drink non-cow’s milk may consume less dietary protein and fat, resulting in reduced growth.

Dr Maguire said: “Height is an important indicator of children’s overall health and development.

“Cow’s milk has been a reliable source of dietary protein and fat for children, two essential nutrients to ensure proper growth in early childhood. But many parents are now choosing non-cow’s milk for children, which may have lower nutritional content.”

Two cups of cow’s milk contains 16g of protein, which is 100 per cent of the daily protein requirement for a threeyear-old child. The same amount of almond milk typically contains just a quarter, researchers said.

There’s an idea abroad that milk is in a way unhealthy. So misguided parents have been giving their little children soya or almond milk instead. Now a study of thousands of children has found that those drinking cow’s milk grow taller than the soya and almond brigade. That’s no surprise, as an emulsion of ground-up almonds or soya beans is called milk only by courtesy, and lacks the mixture of dairy fats and proteins that has long made calves sturdy and active, and infants likewise. It was persuasive to promise the Israelites in the desert a land of milk and honey. What could be more attractive? Perversely, in our land of abundance, we make our own crankish deserts and wonder why we dwindle and pine. In Britain the rain pours, the grass grows, the cows graze and we’d be wise to fit in with these natural provisions.