Big Milk is still promoting the ridiculous concept that drinking 24 ounces of milk (the caloric equivalent of 27lbs a year of skim, 37lbs a year of 2% or 43lbs a year of chocolate milk) will magically help you lose weight.
If you remember, back in May Big Milk (specifically the National Dairy Council in the States), admitted that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that milk consumption has any benefit in weight control, and in response to pressure from the Federal Trade Commission agreed to back off on those advertisements.
Well it's now two months later and their obscene website is still up and running and going strong. The entire site is dedicated to the premise that milk causes weight loss as they state,
"The current body of research supporting dairy's role in weight management includes randomized clinical trials (considered the "gold standard" of science), observational, animal and cellular studies conducted by leading research institutions throughout the country."This post is for the benefit of my American readers - if you'd like to petition the FTC to actually do something, please complain.
Click here to be linked to the FTC's online complaint form.
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Part of the confusion stems from the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement championing the elimination or drastic reduction of sugar or fructose sweetened soft drinks in schools and the substitution of low-fat dairy products or whole fruit juices to replace them. The National Dairy Counsel website is without question deceptive and manipulative in their suggestions that what America is drinking needs to include milk for any of a variety of reasons. But then, who gets information from the National Dairy Counsel website? Also of interest, a number of the scientific articles presented in their parade of evidence presented on their website are authored by Michael B. Zemel at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. What’s his interest in big dairy?
ReplyDeleteMichael Zemel's research is funding by Big Dairy so his interest is financial. More so given that his University has apparently patented the claim that milk leads to weight loss (you can find links to the patent in some of my older Milk category posts).
ReplyDeleteRegarding the website, it's not simply the website as this week's US Weekly magazine has a big deceptive Think About Your Drink ad on the back cover that again promotes the consumption of 24 ounces of milk daily to help with weight loss.