MILK MYTH
There he stood before us, at about 6 feet, barking orders of chores to be done. As I waited for my turn, all I could do was stare with admiration and be fascinated by his authority and hieght. From then I promised myself I will become as tall as he was before I am done with high school.
I must confess that I had attempted any known strategy to make me increase in height. I googled tips on growing taller, bookmarked howtogrowtaller.com on my browser, did daily stretching exercises, slept very early, and of course drank milk. But after almost year of such an intense heightening course workout with milk, especially, I did not understand why I was still not growing tall. It was alarming. Senior year was approaching, the big 17 was approaching yet I was not even close to 6’0″, my dream height. It was time to consider my options and narrow them down to the strategies that seemed to be working.
Unsurprisingly, milk was the first ineffective strategy that I thought of and I was right. Although everyone believes that milk makes a person grow taller, I certainly now do not believe so. Fun-sized people, like myself, are always advised to drink milk because milk is protein and Biology teaches that protein is good for growth and tissue repair. Nevertheless, how much of a difference can an environmental factor such as food (milk) make a 5’8″ person be 6’0″? But unfortunately, I fell prey to this milk myth as far as I can remember without considering the other factors. Coming from a country where people easily beleive what they are told, fact or myth, without looking to seek the truth, it therefore took me a while to realize that milk alone couldn’t make me 6 foot tall.
I thought, if milk has such height stimulation properties, why are celebrities such as Kimora Lee Simmons and Lisa Kudrow who are both lactose intolerant so tall? Milk definitely did not play a role in their milk-free growth. It was most likely their genes. Or in considering the height of the average American person to that of an average Dutch person, which is quite shocking since milk is always stocked in the fridge of a typical American home. Although milk is not beneficial in making a person taller, and is evident from my 5’8″ height and the shortness of an average American to that of a Dutch person, milk does improve intelligence and mental performance. A study on a group of 7-year-old Vietnamese children, done by the country’s Nutritional Institute, substantiated this theory. Therefore, drinking glasses of milk daily may not be bad after all because even though it doesn’t make one taller, it actually improves intelligence.
By the last week of junior year, I had gotten the perfect opportunity to express my idea in a “Don’t buy an item or idea” speech for English class. Because after gathering much information to support my objection that milk doesn’t make a person grow taller, I thought of nothing else than to present this argument to my English class. It was great; I gained quite a number of laughs and support and a lot more objections. However, I am sure that I had convinced them because by the end of my speech, I could tell that my fellow fun-sized peers in class had noticed the flaws with milk in the “milk gives hieght” myth and had hopefully cut it out of their individual height-increasing strategies, like myself. Hence, I currently consider myself a ‘Milk against Height’ advocate and will be willing to advice any other interested persons.
