In summary, vegan diets can be safe for children as long as parents and guardians are well informed about the key nutrients required for growth and development. Furthermore, parents of vegan children must be extra cautious to ensure they're eating a balanced diet and seek professional guidance, where necessary.
Plus, in 2009, the American Dietetic Association concluded that a well-planned vegetarian or vegan diet was safe for people at every stage of life — including for pregnant and nursing moms, children and babies — with the caveat that fortified foods or supplements can “provide useful amounts of important nutrients.”
“Raising a kid as a vegan or vegetarian has many long-term health benefits when done correctly and really focusing on high-nutrient and wholesome foods.
Vegan and vegetarian diets are safe for babies and toddlers, and can provide all the nutrients they need – with a few caveats. Once your baby shows signs of readiness (around 6 months old), you can start introducing solid foods.
Though virtually every vegan parent wants her children to be vegan too, it is unfortunately quite likely that the child will eventually decide to eat the way that all the other children do. Knowing that this is true, a vegan parent could react in different ways.
Children on vegan diets had about 5 per cent lower bone mineral content and were on average 3cm shorter in height. This is important, as the higher the bone mineral content, the higher the bone mineral density.
The health service signposts parents to the First Steps Nutrition Trust website, which states: 'It is important to note that meeting the nutritional requirements of babies and young children will be challenging on a vegan diet, and using fortified foods and some supplements will be essential. '
Remember, a vegan diet is not inherently healthy- what we can take away is that incorporating a robust variety of plant-based foods into the diet while avoiding processed foods and processed meats is the key to optimizing health benefits- whether or not you chose to eat meat.
Significantly more infants whose mothers were vegan were classified as being small for gestational age compared to infants whose mothers were omnivores.
Like all mammals, a human mother produces milk for the sole purpose of nourishing her baby. So for vegan moms and their babies, there's no moral contradiction in breastfeeding. Margie Deutsch Lash, an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, says the following: Mammal milk is species specific.
Kids are more prone to iron deficiency than any other nutrient, and it's much more common for children who don't eat meat. It's an important component of hemoglobin, the component of red blood cells that dutifully carries oxygen from the lungs to the bloodstream.
While it is unwise to implement a vegan diet before a child is done breastfeeding, there is no set age for your child to go vegan. Once a baby is old enough to eat solid foods, then it is safe to remove animal products from their diet.
Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry and vegans also do not eat animal products such as eggs and dairy foods. The law proposes jail sentences of a year for raising a child on a vegan diet, up to four years if the child develops a permanent health problem and up to seven years if the child dies as a result.
Currently there are no laws that make it illegal to put children on a vegan diet, but it is possible to prosecute parents for child neglect based on malnutrition.
Going vegan is one of the best things you can do to help stop animal cruelty. By refusing to pay for animal products, you reduce the demand for them, which ensures fewer animals are bred to suffer and die on farms and in slaughterhouses.
Do vegans look younger? In general, vegans do not look any younger than people who choose to eat meat and dairy products, though many do live longer, healthier lives. Still, the effects of aging are not only determined by what we eat.
A poll commissioned by BBC Good Food found that eight per cent of children aged five to 16 are already following a vegan diet, while 15 per cent said they would like to be vegan. It reported that 13 percent of children are vegetarian, and a further 21 per cent would like to be vegetarian.
No, your dad is likely shorter due to basic malnutrition. Malnutrition is caused by lack of appropriate macro and micro nutrients, irrespective of their source. Studies have shown that properly nourished vegetarians, vegans and meat eaters grow to the same height.
No statistically significant differences have been shown for total cardiovascular disease between vegans and meat eaters, but the data so far suggest there may be a lower risk of ischaemic heart disease and perhaps a higher risk of stroke in vegans. There is no evidence of a difference in life expectancy.
Not only can humans obtain all the necessary protein and nutrients from a no meat diet, but there are a plethora of health benefits associated with offsetting meat intake with plant-based foods.
And this checks out – a summary of multiple trials found that vegetarian diets result in lower LDL levels than those which include meat. In a more general sense, massive studies of thousands of people agree that vegan diets are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease than omnivorous ones.
On the other hand, a vegan diet can be potentially critical for young children with risks of inadequate supply in terms of protein quality and energy as well as long-chain fatty acids, iron, zinc, vitamin D, iodine, calcium, and particularly vitamin B12.
According to pediatric dietitian Katie Nowacki, RD, a vegan diet can be healthy for children too, but you may need to make a few modifications. “You want to make sure your children are getting all the vitamins and nutrients their growing bodies require,” she says.
Young children who follow a vegan diet without medical and dietary advice carry the risk of a number of nutrient deficiencies, including vitamin B12, calcium, zinc and high quality protein, which can have potentially devastating health effects, say experts. Is it safe to bring a child up as vegan?