Milk-and-Dairy-Products-in-Human-Nutrition-FAO

Chapter 4 – Milk and dairy products as part of the diet 115
Another RCT evaluated the growth of 544 children aged 5–14 years (median age
7.1 years) in rural Kenya after 23 months on a diet supplemented with a meat, milk
(200 ml/day) or energy supplement compared with a control group that received no
supplement. Children in each of the supplementation groups gained significantly more
weight (about 10 percent) than the control group. No statistically significant overall
effects of supplementation were found on height, height-for-age Z score, weight-forheight
Z score or measures of body fat. However, in a subgroup of children whose
height-for-age Z score was below median at baseline, milk supplementation led to a
statistically significant increase in height gain of 1.3 cm (15 percent) compared with
the control group (P=0.05) and 1 cm (11 percent) more height than those in the group
receiving the meat supplement (P=0.09) (Grillenberger et. al., 2003).
An RCT study in South Wales, United Kingdom, probed the effect on growth
of the provision of free milk supplements to schoolchildren of seven and eight years
old (Baker et al., 1980). The children included were “those whose socio-economic
circumstances might place them at a disadvantage for growth”. The results showed
that height and weight gain associated with the provision of free milk was very small
in the study population: the milk group grew only 2.9 mm more than the control
group, although this was significant (P