Photo courtesy of Milk Producer, April 2019 edition
Study encourages preschoolers to consume calcium-rich foods
By Mya Kidson
Dairy is a staple food group in a child’s daily diet. However, despite attempts to increase kids’ consumption, dairy may be lacking in their everyday routine. Since the new Canada’s Food Guide further steers consumers toward a more plant-based diet, new concerns are being raised that children might lack key nutrients dairy offers.
Master’s student Victoria Srbely and undergraduate student Imtisal Janjua, along with professors Andrea Buchholz from the department of family relations and applied nutrition at the University of Guelph and Genevieve Newton from the department of human health and nutritional sciences, looked at results from various scientific journals that examined methods targeting dairy consumption in children.
In order to determine why dairy consumption in children was low, researchers analyzed the results to identify the most effective method, but found little success.
“There is more work to be done to encourage dairy consumption in children,” Buchholz says. “We aren’t sure why methods were unsuccessful, but we want to find out.”
The scientific articles that were reviewed had been written over a 20-year period from 1998 to 2018. Prior to the study, the two most notable methods thought to improve dairy consumption included examining dairy intake patterns in children alone compared with dairy intake patterns in the entire family.
Results demonstrated the family method and studies targeting the child alone were relatively ineffective, and Buchholz and Newton remained curious as to why dairy is under consumed.
“The public is being told so many different things about dairy, which makes dietary choices confusing,” Newton says. “Maybe the lack of dairy consumption is the result of dairy’s negative representation in the media.”
Going forward, Buchholz and Newton will conduct focus groups with families as part of the Guelph Family Health Study (GFHS) to gain an understanding of parents’ perceptions surrounding dairy. This information will be used to develop an intervention targeting consumption of dairy and dairy alternatives in young families in order to reap the nutritional benefits and reduction of early onset of diseases associated with consuming calcium-rich foods.
Researchers hope to discover why dairy often goes unrecognized as an important food source by asking families their perceptions of dairy. They’ll ultimately use those results to further promote a dairy-inclusive lifestyle for young families.