On the internet you can find every type of girl: nap girls, Pilates girls, Bravo girls, Prozac girls, reading girls – just to name a few.
Move over, oat milk. Whole milk is making a comeback.
Chelsea Shackel thinks she’s an oat milk girl.
The 30-year-old beautician grew up drinking whole milk. But when she moved to Los Angeles in 2018, not only did ordering oat milk drinks seem trendy, but “all of a sudden it seemed wrong to drink whole milk. … I remember people feeding me information about whole milk, and I guess I just convinced myself that it was bad for me.” She even wondered if she was lactose intolerant.
Shakur considers himself a very “health and wellness-conscious person, so making a small switch” — to plant-based milk — “made me feel like I was doing something. [good for me]”, she said. So for years, she stuck with oat milk.
Until earlier this year, a Starbucks barista mistakenly added whole milk to Shakur’s coffee. She decided to keep the coffee and try whole milk again. It was delicious. “It tastes so much better, and I don’t have any stomach issues,” Shakur said. On TikTok, she discovered others, including makeup influencer Jaclyn Hill, who has returned to drinking whole milk. “Well, I’m not the only one,” Shakur thought.
As a result, Shakur became a whole-milk girl, as many others define themselves on social media.
Following the nut milk craze of the past few years, whole milk is back in a big way, with many adults drinking it, according to a recent Yahoo/YouGov poll.
U.S. rebounds from long-term dairy decline
After years of steady decline, milk sales are rebounding.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), American milk consumption has been declining since the 1970s. Part of the reason for this decline is that the American Heart Association (AHA) urges people to reduce their intake of saturated fat because research shows that saturated fat may raise levels of “bad” (LDL) cholesterol. As a result, “dairy fat has really been unfairly demonized for nearly 50 years,” Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and director of Tufts University’s Food as Medicine Institute, tells Yahoo.
The stigma has hit whole milk particularly hard, hurting overall milk sales — although skim and low-fat varieties have seen some growth. Milk sales peaked in 2009 and declined every year until 2024. The rebound was driven by growth in whole milk sales, which climbed during the year even as Americans purchased less of other types of milk, including skim and 2 percent milk. The recently updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which state that “when dairy products are consumed, include whole-fat dairy products with no added sugars,” although the guidelines still state that saturated fat should not exceed 10 percent of daily calories, further fueling the momentum.
Even before the January Dietary Guidelines update, however, another huge shift was beginning to favor whole milk: the protein craze. Lizzy Davis, a registered dietitian and assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells Yahoo that in the age of protein maximization, some people even mix protein powder into a cup of whole milk to double the dose. Additionally, nut milk prices have increased more than dairy prices, with some cafes even adding surcharges to oatmeal lattes and almond cappuccinos.
You could say whole milk is having a moment. Pantone’s color of the year for 2026 is “Cloud Dancer,” a white that’s been likened to milk. Raw milk has become a cultural hotspot, touted to fame and notoriety by influencers including Ballerina Farm. “Milk girls” on social media are touting A2 milk, which is said to be less likely to cause stomach upset. There’s even a clothing brand called Dairy Boy.
Today, about one-third of U.S. adults drink whole milk, according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll of 1,704 people we conducted between February 9 and 12, 2026. Of the 81% of respondents who said they drink some kind of milk or milk alternative, 59% said they primarily drank milk, while the majority (32%) said they drank whole milk. 21% of respondents said they use 2% skim milk (chosen by 21%) and plant-based alternatives (12%). While milk is most commonly used in cereals (54%), many adults drink a glass, with 42% reporting drinking only milk.
Most respondents said they drink the same amount of milk as before, or even less. But sales of whole milk are up while sales of plant-based milks are down, suggesting some parts of the population may be switching from oats or almonds to whole milk.
Is whole milk healthy?
This is a question that has been debated in the nutrition community for decades. Mozaffarian began studying the link between dietary fat and cardiovascular health in part because of “the national focus on low-fat diets,” he said. Even so, he said research doesn’t strongly support the idea that reducing dietary fat intake improves health. “The evidence actually supports more Fat and less starch and sugar,” Mozaffarian explains.
On the other hand, diets rich in saturated fats and trans fats (found mostly in highly processed foods) are associated with higher levels of bad cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease. But “the fats we eat may not have as big an impact on blood lipid levels as we first thought,” Davis said. A new review of large-scale studies has found contradictory results: The amount of saturated fat in the diet has little effect among people at a lower risk of heart disease, but it matters a lot in people at a higher risk of heart attacks.
However, few studies have specifically compared whole milk to low-fat milk. Mozaffarian cited a study that found that when people who drank whole milk switched to low-fat milk, they ended up eating more starch and sugar. Low-fat milk and milk alternatives often also contain added sugar or higher proportions of sodium, and Mozaffarian suspects that many of the extra calories people consume come from unhealthy, ultra-processed foods. Davis explains that by comparison, whole milk is very filling, and that fullness may cause people to eat fewer calories from other sources than they would otherwise.
There may be something special about the saturated fat in dairy products, too. Some research suggests that the short-chain amino acids (cell building blocks) in milk fat may benefit body metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Other studies show that consuming milk, cheese and yogurt of any fat content does not directly increase the risk of heart disease or stroke.
Overall, whole milk may offer some health benefits to many people, while low-fat milk may be better for those at risk for heart disease. Bottom line: Your milk choice itself is unlikely to make or break your health, and whatever variety you choose can be incorporated into a nutritious diet.
For Schackler, switching to whole milk wasn’t about better health — it just tasted better to her. Mozaffarian says this is actually a good guideline. “I don’t think the evidence is strong enough to tell people only Eat full-fat dairy, but if you prefer full-fat dairy or it can help you switch from sugary, more processed versions [such as sweetened oat milk]that’s more real food — it’s great,” he said.
