A Strong Case Against Skim Milk
Morgan Allison
Summary
This article explored the idea that even though most people are told to go for the low fat or skim milk, full fat milk can actually help you in lowering your weight loss and diabetes risk. This article seemed to focus more on the diabetes risk portion, and stated that if you drink low fat milk, you are missing calories that full fat milk provides. Because of this, you are making them up in other foods and nutrients, such as sugar and carbohydrates. By consuming more sugar and carbohydrates you then are increasing your risk for obesity and diabetes, among other health problems. By going for the higher fat milk, you are consuming more fat and calories and because of this, the article claims, you are less likely to fill those gaps with sugar. The article ends with the idea that foods need to be looked at holistically, instead of just as one-nutrient providing foods. When people cut whole food or food groups out of their diet, they miss all the other nutrient that food provides, and because of this their diets are lacking.
Article Critique
This was an article published by TIME Magazine, which is the world's largest circulating magazine. With that being said, TIME Magazine is just a newspaper, and those that write these articles are not always experts in the field they are commenting on. The purpose of magazines are to comment on interesting topics, ones that will keep their readers engaged. While articles in TIME are not fictional articles, the things stated in them are mostly opinion of the journalist and may be embellished to gain readership, as this is the purpose of a magazine. This article cites experts in nutrition and also takes direct quotes and mentions two studies which link low fat milk to diabetes and obesity, which does add to it's credibility. With that being said, it does not mention the other side of the argument, or how low fat milk came to be recommended over it's high fat counterpart in the first place. While it looks good that the author mentioned studies done by nutritional experts, I did not get to read the other side of the argument. Due to this, I think the article allows you to draw false or incomplete conclusions, ones that do not include every side of the argument. Alice Park, the author of this article has been writing for TIME since 1993, always about health. She recently published a book on stem cell research so this adds to her credibility, though it seems nutrition is not her expertise. Overall, I think this is a very interesting article that does have mentions of credible sources and studies done on the subject. However, I think it is lacking in exploring all sides of the issue and may lead to a bias view on milk. The author seems to be well read, but is far from being an expert in nutrition. This article is interesting, and it's ideas, once researched, could make for an even better argument.