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Do Vegan diets for children really need to be outlawed?
Replies
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Given that it is possible for children to thrive as vegans, I think it would be absolute governmental over-reach for it to be outlawed. Child abuse -- including malnourishment -- should absolutely be against the law. But forcing parents to feed their children animal products? No way.3
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FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
Force fed an eating disorder? This is laughable.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
So which is it? We can teach our kids to eat healthily and not be huge couch potatoes, or we can feed them all the garbage and give them video games so they are big enough not to be "flagged" as too small... and then labeled as obese when they are clearly NOT obese.
Not sure what test they would have used. BMI, which is the height/weight 5'2 120lbs is smack dab in the middle of healthy range. She medically wouldn't be considered obese until 160lbs.3 -
BillMcKay1 wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
Force fed an eating disorder? This is laughable.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
So which is it? We can teach our kids to eat healthily and not be huge couch potatoes, or we can feed them all the garbage and give them video games so they are big enough not to be "flagged" as too small... and then labeled as obese when they are clearly NOT obese.
Not sure what test they would have used. BMI, which is the height/weight 5'2 120lbs is smack dab in the middle of healthy range. She medically wouldn't be considered obese until 160lbs.
Children have a different BMI chart. According to the child chart, she is overweight (I'm not defending what the school did -- I am horrified by this story).4 -
I'd like to see the text of the law (translated, or I'd find it myself). Although the motivation relates to certain incidents resulting from badly-constructed vegan diets, if it says "lacking essential nutrients" (as seems to be the case) and the issue is not supplementing B12 or having a deficient diet that results in malnutrition, that's a different thing than assuming that vegan diets inherently lack essential nutrients, which is not the case.
I still find it troubling, as it would be hard to enforce and so done inconsistently, and there can be medical issues that appear to be related to malnutrition (like malabsorption problems) that appear to be the parents' fault but are not.
Haven't there been some cases here with babies/children being fed inadequate diets that resulted in prosecution?
Edit--yes, here are a couple of examples:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/11/08/child.starved/
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/24/ctv.swinton/
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chunky_pinup wrote: »I would certainly hope not! My vegan 22-month old is taller than 4 and 5 year olds, eats like a champ, and her doctor thinks she's absolutely thriving and wouldn't change a thing. I think feeding a vegan diet to children gets a bad rap because you hear of parents restricting their childs diet to the point of starvation/malnutrition, which can happen on ANY way of eating...we make sure our child is getting enough of all her nutrients, and she will eat nearly anything we put in front of her...animal products aside.
For the record, I'm vegan and my husband is about as far from vegan as you can be. We both have a dairy allergy and our child does too, so dairy is off the table. However, we have tried giving her meat and eggs, and they are some of the ONLY foods she flat out refuses. We still offer them when my husband is eating them, but she'd rather devour his quinoa and broccoli. Which is fine by us, we just make sure her nutritional needs are met. If she EVER wants to eat animal products, I will have no problem with that, but my point is, she is FAR from missing out on anything she needs on a vegan diet.
Technically, the proposed Italian law, according to my reading of the article, penalizes vegan diets that result in malnourishment. So if the child is thriving, regardless of diet, no one is going to jail. The law would worry me a bit because children can have absorption issues, like adults, and it seems possible that parents who aren't negligent could be penalized too, if it was assumed that the diet was the problem.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
Force fed an eating disorder? This is laughable.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
So which is it? We can teach our kids to eat healthily and not be huge couch potatoes, or we can feed them all the garbage and give them video games so they are big enough not to be "flagged" as too small... and then labeled as obese when they are clearly NOT obese.
Not sure what test they would have used. BMI, which is the height/weight 5'2 120lbs is smack dab in the middle of healthy range. She medically wouldn't be considered obese until 160lbs.
Children have a different BMI chart. According to the child chart, she is overweight (I'm not defending what the school did -- I am horrified by this story).
hmm...I was looking at a BMI chart for girls aged 2-20 and it indicated at 5'2 120 was in the normal range.3 -
enterdanger wrote: »I wouldn't feed my kids 100% Vegan, but I'm against anyone telling me what I can and can't eat and how to feed my kids. Stop trying to over govern me.
The US gov't in particular is ridiculous. They think I'm too dumb to make good choices here in Philly and have a tax on sweet beverages (I say sweet since diet stuff is taxed too). However, I'm apparently smart enough to be able to go out tomorrow and buy an assault rifle. How does that make sense?
Over 2/3 of the US is overweight or obese. Seems like a lot of people have issues making choices.1 -
BillMcKay1 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
Force fed an eating disorder? This is laughable.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
So which is it? We can teach our kids to eat healthily and not be huge couch potatoes, or we can feed them all the garbage and give them video games so they are big enough not to be "flagged" as too small... and then labeled as obese when they are clearly NOT obese.
Not sure what test they would have used. BMI, which is the height/weight 5'2 120lbs is smack dab in the middle of healthy range. She medically wouldn't be considered obese until 160lbs.
Children have a different BMI chart. According to the child chart, she is overweight (I'm not defending what the school did -- I am horrified by this story).
hmm...I was looking at a BMI chart for girls aged 2-20 and it indicated at 5'2 120 was in the normal range.
I used this one, from the CDC website. However, I am not an expert and it may not be the most up-to-date way to measure. https://nccd.cdc.gov/dnpabmi/calculator.aspx1 -
Here in this province a couple were found guilty of killing their toddler, who died of meningitis. The couple, who ran their own health food business tried to treat their increasingly sick child with mustard plasters and the like. All natural. No visit to a conventional doctor or an emergency room until it was much, much too late.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/lethbridge-meningitis-trial-sentence-parents-toddler-died-1.3650653
Essential micronutrients that a growing child needs include B12, the omega 3 fatty acids, and vitamin D are not easily fulfilled on a vegan diet. No matter how well researched and earnest the parents may be.
What does that article have to do with a vegan diet? Those parents refused to get medical treatment for their child. Not really the same thing.4 -
As the American Academy of Pediatrics, a vegan or vegetarian diet can be appropriate for children of all ages. Anybody who is stupid enough to not do the work to ensure their child is getting adequately nourished is not going to do better if you just demand they add eggs or meat to the diet. There are plenty of children eating truly awful non-vegan diets. When they get sick, you just never see a headline reading "Parents under suspicion for feeding children omnivorous diet!"8
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SoDamnHungry wrote: »Here in this province a couple were found guilty of killing their toddler, who died of meningitis. The couple, who ran their own health food business tried to treat their increasingly sick child with mustard plasters and the like. All natural. No visit to a conventional doctor or an emergency room until it was much, much too late.
http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/calgary/lethbridge-meningitis-trial-sentence-parents-toddler-died-1.3650653
Essential micronutrients that a growing child needs include B12, the omega 3 fatty acids, and vitamin D are not easily fulfilled on a vegan diet. No matter how well researched and earnest the parents may be.
What does that article have to do with a vegan diet? Those parents refused to get medical treatment for their child. Not really the same thing.
I also don't understand the comment about B12, Omega 3, and D not easily fulfilled on a vegan diet. I take a supplement for each of those every morning. They're affordable, easy to obtain, and it takes a few seconds. It's incredibly easy to meet those nutritional needs -- my earnestness has little to do with it.2 -
I admit, I haven't read anything in-depth about this particular potential law.
However, I don't think ideal of adding language around malnutrition and even extreme obesity into abuse or neglect statutes is completely out-of-bounds. It would need to be applied EXTREMELY carefully - very specific health markers/criteria would need to be laid out, extensive opinions by doctors would need to be gathered, a number of non-criminal interventions would need to take place to ensure that the parents had both the knowledge and financial ability to provide appropriate nutrition, and it would need to be clearly demonstrated that the parents are willfully disregarding the child's health before a criminal charge could take place. I recognize and worry that the risks of misapplication and emotional trauma to the children/families could outweigh the benefits to applicable children, so ultimately I think I would disagree with the idea of actually enacting such a law. But I actually don't think the concept is so shocking.4 -
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BreezeDoveal wrote: »If eating vegans is illegal for adults, why would you let it be legal for children?
Edit: missed the joke0 -
robingmurphy wrote: »As the American Academy of Pediatrics, a vegan or vegetarian diet can be appropriate for children of all ages. Anybody who is stupid enough to not do the work to ensure their child is getting adequately nourished is not going to do better if you just demand they add eggs or meat to the diet. There are plenty of children eating truly awful non-vegan diets. When they get sick, you just never see a headline reading "Parents under suspicion for feeding children omnivorous diet!"
FYI: I didn't read the article because well the title "Do Vegan diets for children really need to be outlawed?" is preposterous in its own right. Anyone who is familiar with nutrition should avoid such sensationalism when possible.
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chunky_pinup wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »I would certainly hope not! My vegan 22-month old is taller than 4 and 5 year olds, eats like a champ, and her doctor thinks she's absolutely thriving and wouldn't change a thing. I think feeding a vegan diet to children gets a bad rap because you hear of parents restricting their childs diet to the point of starvation/malnutrition, which can happen on ANY way of eating...we make sure our child is getting enough of all her nutrients, and she will eat nearly anything we put in front of her...animal products aside.
For the record, I'm vegan and my husband is about as far from vegan as you can be. We both have a dairy allergy and our child does too, so dairy is off the table. However, we have tried giving her meat and eggs, and they are some of the ONLY foods she flat out refuses. We still offer them when my husband is eating them, but she'd rather devour his quinoa and broccoli. Which is fine by us, we just make sure her nutritional needs are met. If she EVER wants to eat animal products, I will have no problem with that, but my point is, she is FAR from missing out on anything she needs on a vegan diet.
you realize the bolded part has nothing to do with diet, right?
The reason they want to outlaw the dietary choice for children is because of recent incidences of death due to malnutrition. She wouldn't be 3.5 feet tall and thriving if she was malnourished, so yes, it does have to do with diet. Would she be as tall and thriving on a different diet? Probably. The point was that she is NOT malnourished and SUFFERING because of a vegan diet. "failure to thrive" is a medical dx that is very commonly associated with poor nutritional health. "You do realize the bolded part has nothing to do with diet?" No, but I do realize that you are clearly not an expert.
a non-vegan child can be properly nourished.
The things you are noticing with your child are based on genetics and not whether or not said child is eating vegan.
You've made it quite clear that you have not read the article in debate. The REASONING for trying to pass this law is because they are claiming that veganism leads to malnourished children. I'm stating that this is not the case, and am in argument with the article, which obviously you have chosen not to read and have instead decided to assume that I'm claiming non-vegan diets cause malnourishment? Where the eff did you read that in my posts?
i am commenting on your comments, and not the article, I thought that was quite clear.2 -
chunky_pinup wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »MissTattoo wrote: »I don't think your diet has anything to do with height of your children. It's genetics. My 9 year old has always been the tallest baby/toddler/child. She's 5'2 while the rest of her 4th grade class is under 4'7. I'm 5'11. Her dad is 6'7. My sister is 5'11. My dad was 6'5. My aunt is 6'2. My first cousins (on my dad's side) are 6'2+ (female and male) We're just tall. She was going to be tall regardless if I breastfed or not or if she ate meat or just veggies.
I don't think it should be outlawed, but I do think people need to be educated. You can't feed a newborn just water and liquefied carrots. As long as your child isn't starved, feed them whatever works for you.
I'm fully aware that her height is genetics...but she wouldn't be reaching that height if she was malnourished or deficient nutrient-wise, which is the reasoning behind the law they are trying to pass in the article.
so are you saying that non-vegans are malnourished???
When did I say that?
I'm debating the article...you know...the thing I actually read...on a post in a debate forum...debating said article...before taking offense to someone's post for something not even said.
and i am debating your comments and asking you to clarify them. it is still a public forum.
You implied that a vegan child is somehow more nourished then a non vegan child, which is why I asked for clarification.3 -
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BreezeDoveal wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »BreezeDoveal wrote: »If eating vegans is illegal for adults, why would you let it be legal for children?
Edit: missed the joke
Which joke did you miss?
About eating vegans -- I initially thought you wrote "eating vegan" and responded to that.0 -
janejellyroll wrote: »BillMcKay1 wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
Force fed an eating disorder? This is laughable.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
So which is it? We can teach our kids to eat healthily and not be huge couch potatoes, or we can feed them all the garbage and give them video games so they are big enough not to be "flagged" as too small... and then labeled as obese when they are clearly NOT obese.
Not sure what test they would have used. BMI, which is the height/weight 5'2 120lbs is smack dab in the middle of healthy range. She medically wouldn't be considered obese until 160lbs.
Children have a different BMI chart. According to the child chart, she is overweight (I'm not defending what the school did -- I am horrified by this story).
Considering just how fat a kid has to be to qualify as anything other than normal (the scale is wide as hell), one should be horrified either way.2 -
Of course not. What a ridiculous question.0
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Think of THE CHILDREN!
It doesn't matter if a law makes sense or not. It doesn't matter if it is helpful or harmful.
All that matters is whether or not the intentions were good. It's all about the feelz.4 -
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"It's time to eat, kids."
"It's time to eat kids."18 -
TheLegendaryBrandonHarris wrote: »"It's time to eat, kids."
"It's time to eat kids."
Grammar saves lives. *nods*
8 -
TheLegendaryBrandonHarris wrote: »"It's time to eat, kids."
"It's time to eat kids."
"Help my uncle Jack off this horse"
"Help my uncle, Jack, off this horse"
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chunky_pinup wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »MissTattoo wrote: »I don't think your diet has anything to do with height of your children. It's genetics. My 9 year old has always been the tallest baby/toddler/child. She's 5'2 while the rest of her 4th grade class is under 4'7. I'm 5'11. Her dad is 6'7. My sister is 5'11. My dad was 6'5. My aunt is 6'2. My first cousins (on my dad's side) are 6'2+ (female and male) We're just tall. She was going to be tall regardless if I breastfed or not or if she ate meat or just veggies.
I don't think it should be outlawed, but I do think people need to be educated. You can't feed a newborn just water and liquefied carrots. As long as your child isn't starved, feed them whatever works for you.
I'm fully aware that her height is genetics...but she wouldn't be reaching that height if she was malnourished or deficient nutrient-wise, which is the reasoning behind the law they are trying to pass in the article.
so are you saying that non-vegans are malnourished???
When did I say that?
I'm debating the article...you know...the thing I actually read...on a post in a debate forum...debating said article...before taking offense to someone's post for something not even said.
and i am debating your comments and asking you to clarify them. it is still a public forum.
You implied that a vegan child is somehow more nourished then a non vegan child, which is why I asked for clarification.
That's not what I thought she was saying.10 -
ShinyFuture wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »chunky_pinup wrote: »MissTattoo wrote: »I don't think your diet has anything to do with height of your children. It's genetics. My 9 year old has always been the tallest baby/toddler/child. She's 5'2 while the rest of her 4th grade class is under 4'7. I'm 5'11. Her dad is 6'7. My sister is 5'11. My dad was 6'5. My aunt is 6'2. My first cousins (on my dad's side) are 6'2+ (female and male) We're just tall. She was going to be tall regardless if I breastfed or not or if she ate meat or just veggies.
I don't think it should be outlawed, but I do think people need to be educated. You can't feed a newborn just water and liquefied carrots. As long as your child isn't starved, feed them whatever works for you.
I'm fully aware that her height is genetics...but she wouldn't be reaching that height if she was malnourished or deficient nutrient-wise, which is the reasoning behind the law they are trying to pass in the article.
so are you saying that non-vegans are malnourished???
When did I say that?
I'm debating the article...you know...the thing I actually read...on a post in a debate forum...debating said article...before taking offense to someone's post for something not even said.
and i am debating your comments and asking you to clarify them. it is still a public forum.
You implied that a vegan child is somehow more nourished then a non vegan child, which is why I asked for clarification.
That's not what I thought she was saying.
I didn't read it that way either -- I read it as saying it was possible for a vegan child to be well-nourished.9 -
htimpaired wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
Five two and 120 lb is far from obese! It's "thick" maybe.... I wouldn't even call it remotely fat.
I'm 5 ft 2 and if I was 120 I'd be healthy. It's not obese, not even overweight. It's in the normal range, I can't imagine why they did that!
There are different weight standards for adult women than there are for 10 year-old girls. Little girls are not considered to be as "developed" as full grown adult females, so they are considered heavier at that particular weight/height. What is a normal weight in an adult may be a little high for a child, even at the same height. From what I've seen, that height and weight on a 10 year old girl is considered overweight, NOT obese. She's in the 92nd percentile, meaning she weighs more than 92% of the other kids at her height. The sticker thing is horrific, though. I don't think they need to be telling the kids anything. Just make a note of it, notify the parents and move on.3 -
htimpaired wrote: »FrugalMomsRock75 wrote: »Children shouldn't be force fed an eating disorder... but I also hate the nanny state.
The main reason is because my daughter came home from school (PUBLIC) devastated one day. They had done the height/weight tests and slapped labels on them and sent them home with their fresh new stickers including, "normal" "overweight" and "obese" Oh. And shan't forget "morbidly obese." My daughter-who at the time was 5'2" and weighed 120-ish pounds was sent home with a shiny "OBESE" sticker. Talk about force feeding an eating disorder? Soon after this, she stopped eating dinner, stopped taking her lunch to school... rarely ate breakfast. Those *kitten* had her believing she was obese! At 10 years of age! I had a struggle with her for years over that crap.
Five two and 120 lb is far from obese! It's "thick" maybe.... I wouldn't even call it remotely fat.
I'm 5 ft 2 and if I was 120 I'd be healthy. It's not obese, not even overweight. It's in the normal range, I can't imagine why they did that!
There are different weight standards for adult women than there are for 10 year-old girls. Little girls are not considered to be as "developed" as full grown adult females, so they are considered heavier at that particular weight/height. What is a normal weight in an adult may be a little high for a child, even at the same height. From what I've seen, that height and weight on a 10 year old girl is considered overweight, NOT obese. She's in the 92nd percentile, meaning she weighs more than 92% of the other kids at her height. The sticker thing is horrific, though. I don't think they need to be telling the kids anything. Just make a note of it, notify the parents and move on.
The problem though with applying that to kids is pretty much every kid I know went through spurts. I have 5 nephews and everyone of them kinda pudged up a bit prior to jumping up several inches in height. There are a lot of kids that are WAY overweight and this isn't the case, but unless the kid has been obviously overweight for a number of years....1
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