According to new research in the Journal of Pediatrics feeding children lots of meat and dairy products build stronger and healthier bones in adolescence. Claiming children eating 2 servings of dairy and 4 or more servings of meat a day had denser bones as teens; Reuters reports.
Bad idea! Kids already eat too much milk and meat. Over time, children, specifically girls, eating a lot meat and dairy products go through puberty sooner, increasing their risk of breast cancer later in life. Not to mention dairy is linked to heart disease and meat to prostate cancer.
Getting plenty of vitamin D is important to bone health. So is exercising. Also, calcium is not restricted to cow juice. Plant foods like flaxseed and quinoa and leafy greens like bok choy, turnip greens, collard greens, kale and romaine lettuce are packed with calcium. Phooey to milk!
UPDATE: Dr. Fuhrman got fired up over this study. His thoughts:
This article must have been interpreted by the animal food industry. The facts are as follows.
It did not show denser or healthier bones in children eating more meat, milk and cheese; it showed kids who eat more animal products are bigger with larger BMI’s. If you are bigger your body’s mass of muscle, bone and fat are bigger too, everything enlarges. So they had bigger bones, not denser or healthier bones, but that we already knew. This is bad, not good; researchers have well established that kids who eat more animal products get bigger and die younger.
Our population is getting bigger, maturing earlier, aging earlier, getting sick sooner and dying younger. Size does not equate with health. A recent study tracking over one million girls for 25 years showed those who were taller and heavier had drastically increased risk of ovarian cancer. And breast cancer is linked to increased size, early maturity and early puberty too. The same heightened cancer risks have been shown for males. Those with the highest body mass have dramatically increased risk of early life death. In fact, an important study showed football players in the largest BMI category (linebackers) had six times greater risk of early life death that those in the lower category.
Overeating animal products in childhood is the main reason for our world’s explosion in cancer incidence in this century. The mantra should be, “Eat to get bigger, die younger.” I discuss more studies in my book Disease-Proof Your Child. Understanding these scientific studies is a must read for every person in America. It is the only way we will ever win the war on cancer.
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