Vegan blonde was on TV, why was her hair falling out?

if you read the article you linked us to, it clearly says she was suffering from orthorexia and was eating 800 calories a day. while she may not have been eating animal products, that's not what veganism is all about. On question #5, if you scroll down the article, she answers back, " I developed obsessions and anxiety around food. It wasn't about veganism. I had restrictions on top of veganism."
did you read the article?

I wouldn't have thought a well thought out vegan diet would cause problems, although B12 is usually touted as an issue.

Many multi-vitamins in capsule form use cartilage from sharks to enclose them. But there are vegan alternatives.

Sounds like she just had a bad diet and it was nothing to do with being a vegan. In fact, a quick glance at the article shows she followed an 800 calorie juice diet. THAT is the problem. Veganism isn't a juice diet.

catscats222 wrote: »

Was it that she was not getting any meat of any kind?

I rather suspect it was due to her (self diagnosed) eating disorder which means she was consistently eating less than 800 calories a day and thereby making it very possible she was not getting adequate nutrition.

Or veganism.

We do not require meat to keep our hair from falling out. Anyone on an overly restricted diet -- vegan or non-vegan-- can run into dangerous deficiencies. Although a diet of just vegetables would make it difficult to meet nutritional needs, a diet without animal products (including fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains) can meet all nutritional needs except for B12 (which is easy and cheap to supplement).

catscats222 wrote: »

got it, she was just too low in calories.
learned: that low cal diets can cause hair to fall out - thought it was something else in the vegan lifestyle

If you read her blog, she's very open that she was not only restricting calories, but was also obsessively restricting foods to fit an increasingly more narrow view of "clean" foods. She was in no way eating a balanced vegan diet; she also wasn't getting enough fat/protein/B12/any number of other nutrients. Her incredibly unhealthy diet just also happened to be vegan, but that isn't really the important part.

I have so much respect for the vegans - I could write an essay, lol.

They may have trouble with B-12 and can have trouble with iron. Those things can be supplemented, though. There is no reason that a vegan diet can't be healthy. Vegetarians will have an easier time, but the vegans do not have to have their hair falling out. That's crazy.

If her hair was falling out - assuming it was diet-related - she was doing something wrong. One reason I love "Oh, She Glows" is that it promotes healthy veganism. You can be both vegan and healthy. If you're vegan, you should be vegan and healthy!

Many people who purposely starve themselves claim to be vegans, but they're fooling themselves. Occasionally, they fool others. It's rare that they fool anyone close to them, but lots of people tie healthy eating and/or veganism to eating disorders because they've been suckered into the lies told by those who starve themselves and claim they're doing it to be vegans or eat "clean" or whatever. It gives veganism a bad name and is unfortunate.

I wish the vegans who aren't generally in-your-face-vegan would state more often that veganism isn't about starving yourself. Unfortunately, the vegans who get publicity are more often the In Your Face kind and not the Oh, She Glows kind.

Plenty of vegans have their hair.

BZAH10 wrote: »

catscats222 wrote: »

got it, she was just too low in calories.
learned: that low cal diets can cause hair to fall out - thought it was something else in the vegan lifestyle

Yeah, I don't think this is about being a vegan at all. It's about her developing and eating disorder and that likely could have happened to her no matter what eating plan she started with. The plan isn't important. It's the fact that she took it to extremes. The article mentioning being vegan is misleading and is a disservice to vegans who eat healthfully.

Unfortunately, she's using veganism as the hook to sell her book. She is aware that will get more attention than the actual cause of her symptoms -- her eating disorder.

The headlines were horrible and misleading.

It is harder to mainatin a healthy balance on a vegan diet, but eminently possible and if someone wants to commit to being vegan, they generally commit to looking after that side of it too.

The aricle is clickbait - "Vegan's hair falls out!" is WAY more 'sexy' than "Orthorexic, 800 cal a day dieter's hair falls out!"