New study adds fire to already-existing debate: Children who drink non-cow’s milk are shorter

Children who drink dairy alternatives like soy, almond or coconut milks are a little shorter than their cow-milk-drinking counterparts, as a new study suggests.

The study can be found in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Each daily cup of non-cow’s milk was connected to 0.4 centimeters lower height than average for a child’s age, as the CNN reports.

“We found that children who are consuming non-cow’s milk like rice, almond and soy milk tended to be a little bit shorter than children who consumed cow’s milk,” said Dr. Jonathon Maguire, the study’s lead author and a pediatrician and researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

“For example, a 3-year-old child consuming three cups of non-cow’s milk relative to cow’s milk was on average 1.5 centimeters shorter.” For a 3 year-old, such a difference is not tiny, as Maguire observed.

For the study, 5,034 healthy Canadian kids ranging in age from 2 to 6 years old were observed. Around 51% of them were male. They were recruited from nine family and pediatric health-care practices from December 2008 to September 2015. Out of those participating, 84% drank only cow’s’s milk, 5% drank exclusively non-cow’s milk, 8% drank both and 3% drank neither.

The most surprising finding was “that the amount children were shorter depended on how much they were consuming”, according to Maguire. “It’s not like if you’re not consuming cow’s milk, you’re a little shorter,” he said. “It’s more like if you are consuming non-cow’s milk, with each cup that a child consumes, that child on average appears to be a little bit smaller, a little shorter. That’s a bit surprising.”

Whether the height difference will remain relevant when the kids grow up is yet to be discovered.

“That’s one remaining question. We don’t know if the kids consuming non-cow’s milk, maybe they catch up over time, or maybe they don’t. Time’s going to have to tell,” he said. “We do know in general as pediatricians that children who are on a certain percentile line in terms of height tend to stay on that line for the rest of their childhood and into adulthood.”

The findings sparked controversy and added fire to an already-existing debate about the benefits of cow’s milk versus dairy alternatives. For instance, one issue with the study might be that only milk consumption was considered, not the overall diet, according to Amy Joy Lanou, a professor of health and wellness at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, who was not involved in the research .

“It’s just odd to me why we wouldn’t be looking at the overall diets of the children,” she said. “If they’re making the claim that it’s because it’s the difference in the types of milk the kids are drinking, well, what else are they eating?”

Lanou has previously led a research that led her to the conclusion that cow’s milk is “not a necessary food”. “Taller children and heavier children are not necessarily healthier adults, or even healthier children,” she argued. “I think they’re using height as a marker for health, and I’m not sure that’s appropriate.” Lanou advised parents not to worry and make sure their kids are getting enough protein from other sources during the day.

Meanwhile, Maguire demanded that non-cow’s milk should be more tightly regulated to bring the industry in line with cow’s milk.