§ Lord Reaasked Her Majesty's Government:
On what evidence the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) Panel on Diet and Cardiovascular Disease recommended that young children should be given full cream milk; whether they agree that there is evidence that atherosclerosis begins in childhood and that a previous COMA report (No. 10) on the Nutrition of Pre-School Children stated that children with a low milk intake were neither lighter nor shorter than average.
§ Lord GlenarthurThe recommendation in the report of the COMA Panel on Diet and Cardiovascular Disease was based on the consideration that the well-established benefits of whole cows' milk to children under five years of age outweigh possible future hazards. There is little scientific evidence of any relationship between the diet of pre-school children and subsequent cardiovascular disease. In the 1967–68 nutrition survey of pre-school children (COMA Report No. 10), a direct link between milk intake, height and weight was not established. Although the survey showed that in most groups there was a tendency for height to increase with milk intake, this relationship was significant only for boys between 1½ and 2½ years of age. However, the report also noted that growth is not solely dependent on nutrition but may be affected by other environmental factors.