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Health101.org
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A Milk Message
How Advertising Agencies Program You

CALCIUM FOR GROWTH

This was an ad ran by the Dairy Association during a nationally televised basketball game. "Calcium for growth" was the message. How deceptively unscientific. Normally, growth is genetically predetermined, but it can also be affected by hormones and malfunctioning glands.

Once in every million or so births, a child is born with a badly malfunctioning pituitary gland. By kindergarten age, that child grows taller than his teacher. By third grade, the young man soars to the height of six feet. Then, somebody hands him a basketball.

This abnormal growth can be compounded by the consumption of foods that contain hormones (animal foods). Even without a malfunctioning gland, hormone containing foods can make make many kinds of tissue grow more than they should... including cancer cells.

The dairy industry feels that people who grow unnaturally tall best exemplify the human ideal. Eat calcium and grow tall? That's nonsense. Drink milk containing powerful growth hormones and grow? That is true. Is it a coincidence that seven foot tall Pau Gasol (above) drank tons of milk as a child?

Each sip of milk contains estrogen and progesterone, and powerful protein hormones as well as steroid hormones. When comparing the bovine growth hormone (bGH) to the human growth hormone (GH), one finds many similarities. There is a growth hormone more powerful than even GH. That hormone is called insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I). Cow's milk contains IGF-I. Human IGF-I is identical to bovine IGF-I. Do you want your kids to have extra IGF-1? Make them drink milk and eat milk products.

Sometimes the effects of milk hormones are subtle. That depends upon the individual. An entire world has been changed by such subtleties, and few note the difference between the little girls of the 70's generation, and today's sexually mature third graders who resemble mature women. (It's sad that this change increases the risk of breast cancer.)

Kids have been consuming increased amounts of concentrated dairy products (cheese, ice cream, pizza), and consuming these amounts at a younger age. Is it any wonder that the other effects of dairy consumption are up: osteoporosis, childhood obesity, and diabetes. Indeed, kids are now beginning to get adult-onset (Type-II) diabetes. We now need to have a third type of diabetes: juvenile-onset-non-insulin-dependant diabetes.

All this is bad for the physical health of the public, but good for the financial health of the dairy, medical, and pharmaceutical industries. Which is more important to you?

This ad, aimed at men who like looking at women who look this way, and aimed at women who'd like to look this way, is another example of "sex sells".

The caption at the bottom reads:

You should see what's underneath.

The calcium in milk keeps bones strong and helps prevent osteoporosis.

Notice they didn't say, "Milk keeps bones strong and helps prevent osteoporosis". Why not? Because they know milk doesn't. Because they know if they said that, they'd be sued and lose. They know milk causes osteoporosis. So they must be careful how they word things. They use the technique of association. If you make connections that are, in reality, untrue, well, it's not their fault.

And as to the "You should see what's underneath", do you think they're trying to make a connection between milk and sex? You bet they are!

This ad appeared on the back cover of the
October 2002 issue of Shape magazine

But the truth is, if you want a better libido (and more years to enjoy it), avoid animal products, including milk and milk products.