When I was in the primary school, my parents always asked me to drink milk every morning. They insist that drinking milk can make us grow taller. Until now, I do not know whether it works for me. But, my parents still force my brother to drink milk every day. I did not see I am wondering whether it is true.
Studies in the United States and Denmark found that “children who drink three or more servings of milk per day between the ages of 2 and 4 years seem to grow taller than those who do not “. This study is observational and it is possible that the chance still exist in this study. Besides, the study limited the age of people to 2 to 4 years old. What I have noticed is that being taller when a person is young does not mean that he or she will be still tall in the future. But since this study did not provide too many details, I may not say whether it is reliable. I am bringing this study to show that this theory had become a common sense among people.
Therefore, I found another study. The data of this study was collected from 664 male and female middle school and high school students aged from 15 to 17 years Korean adolescents. The purpose of this study is to find out the correlation between consumption of milk or milk products and physical growth and bone mineral density. People are also divided into three groups according to the tertiles: Q1 group (lower intake group), Q2 group (middle intake group) and Q3 group (upper intake group). “The daily calcium intakes of milk and milk products were 16.2 mg/day in the Q1 group, 99.7 mg/day in the Q2 group, and 284.0 mg/day in the Q3 group.” The results show that the average height was 170.5 cam in males and 159.8cm in females.
(You can see the methods and figures from the link).
This study is experimental and is more reliable than the first one. It proved that there is correlation between the consumption of milk and physical growth. It improves calcium intake and bone health afterwards. This experiment show that milk do have positive impact to the growth of teenagers. So, I believe that what my parents doing now is correct. It does not mean that drinking milk must make you grow taller! It still depends on different since third variable still exists.
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I was always a big milk drinker when I was younger, but never for the purpose of getting taller. I never really thought much about milk being a growth agent, but the research that you provide shows that there is a possible correlation. While you discuss whether or not milk makes you taller, the other part of the common thoughts on milk is whether or not it makes you strong. I wonder what kind of evidence is out there to show if milk makes you strong.
Your blog post interested me as well due to the fact that my parents told me to always drink a glass a milk because it would make my bones stronger. They always blamed a broken bone on not enough calcium in my body. So, I am wondering if there is a correlation between broken bones and how much milk you consume? This article states that it is recommended to drink three glasses a milk a day in order to keep your bones strong. “Each year, osteoporosis (the weakening of bones) leads to more than 1.5 million fractures, including 300,000 broken hips.” Like you mentioned in your post though, there is the issue of third variables. We are unsure of what type of milk the subjects were drinking.
I ended up doing a similar thing, but my came about my researching if coffee stunts your growth. I found that coffee can speed up osteoporosis, which you can get from not getting enough calcium, and that is what, in fact, causes this idea of stunted growth. It was said in my studies that those who drank milk did not have to worry as much about the side effects of coffee. I did not really drink milk growing up as a kid and my brother did. Now, we are a generally short family, so milk or not the chances of me reaching above 5 foot were slim, but my brother has already passed my dad’s height and I wonder how much more he could go. Now my question would be is it genes or the milk? Here is a little youtube video on this idea of milk making someone grow taller.