Dairy Council to End Ad Campaign That Linked Drinking Milk With Weight Loss

A national advertising campaign that associates dairy products with weight loss will be curtailed because research does not support the claim, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The advertisements, conceived by the promotional arm of the dairy industry and overseen by the Agriculture Department, feature slogans like “Milk your diet. Lose weight!” and suggest that three servings of dairy products a day can help people be slim.

Dairy products were upgraded in the 2005 revision of federal dietary guidelines, which recommended that people consume more low-fat milk and dairy products. An advisory committee that helped set the guidelines cited a report, partly financed by the dairy industry, which found that low-fat dairy products did not necessarily add to weight gain and that dairy products have certain nutrients that can help consumers meet dietary recommendations. The guidelines increased the amount of low-fat or fat-free dairy products to three cups a day, up from two cups. The dairy council is allowed to continue to use wording from those guidelines that says adults and children should not avoid milk and milk products because of concerns that they may lead to weight gain, the letter from the F.T.C. said.

Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, said the agreement to modify the advertisements was groundbreaking. “Those ads were ridiculously misleading,” she said.

Courtesy of the New York Times.

Steve - this is shocking. It is considered a major slap on the hand to Big Dairy. We were outraged when this campaign came out. There is gives more credence to the debacle that is the 2005 USDA Dietary Guidelines.