Whole or 2% Milk for Weaning Babies? The American Academy of Pediatrics Weighs In

Recently, there has been a big change in nutrition advice for infants that has nearly gone unnoticed. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has revised its recommendation that babies that are weaned should be fed whole milk until they are 2 years of age. The new consensus is that reduced-fat 2% milk should be given to weaned infants between the ages of 12 months and 2 years, if they are at all at risk of being overweight, have a family history of high cholesterol, obesity or heart disease.

Whole milk was first considered essential for babies that are being weaned up to 2 years of age because the dietary fats are important for their early brain development. However, the recent studies have shown that kids that are given reduced-fat milk developed normally. According to an AAP and spokeswoman and MD, Tanya R. Altmann, "Children do need a certain amount of fat for brain development. But children now are getting too much fat from other sources. Dairy is very important for child development. Children and adults who consume low-fat dairy products are healthier. So we still recommend three servings a day of low-fat milk over age 2."

This advice came as part of the AAP's recent recommendations for cholesterol screenings for children. But somehow the advice about the milk got lost in the uproar over the advice to give cholesterol-lowering drugs to some kids that are as young as 8 years of age. (See "Cholesterol Medication for Children?") The controversy quickly faded as the parents realized that the AAP suggested using the medications only as a last resort for the less than 1% of kids that had disastrously high cholesterol levels.

The new AAP recommendations appear in the July 2008 issue of the journal Pediatrics and affect a lot more children than recent concerns about prescribing cholesterol for children that covered up the milk recommendations.