If you are a parent considering raising your child plant-based, consider the case of a 12-year-old girl raised on a strict vegan diet. The girl ended up in the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, Scotland suffering from a severe form of rickets.
The girl had already experienced multiple fractures and been diagnosed with a degenerated spine comparable to that of an unhealthy 80-year-old woman.
Fast Food Diet Better for a Child than Veganism
Say what you will about a child who eats junk food, if the diet overall includes animal foods like eggs, meat and dairy…even if from fast food joints…this type of bone degeneration simply does not happen.
For all the downsides of The Standard American Diet, it is shockingly still a better choice than even a whole food vegan diet (aka “plant-based”) that is devoid of numerous critical nutrients a growing child’s body demands.
Pediatrician Discredits Veganism for Children
Media reports indicate that the hospital doctors were under pressure to report the girl’s parents to police and social workers.
Dr. Faisal Ahmed, a pediatrician treating the girl, warned that the dangers of forcing children to follow a strict vegan diet need to be publicized. (1)
If raised strictly vegan, the child would almost certainly have severe deficiencies of Vitamins A and D, both of which are essential bone nutrients that can only be obtained from animal foods.
For example, using aquafaba instead of eggs and plant-based meat substitutes can prove very dangerous.
In all likelihood, the child would also be lacking needed calcium, zinc (the intelligence mineral), B-12 as well as other B vitamins, Vitamin K2, the EPA and DHA fatty acids, and the sulfur containing amino acids methionine and cysteine.
Although the human body is theoretically capable of converting beta carotene from vegetables like carrots into true Vitamin A, children are not able to do so efficiently if at all.
Sunlight could have provided Vitamin D but only if the family spent a lot of time outdoors year-round in a tropical area. Northern climes like Scotland simply do not offer the benefit of Vitamin D-producing sunlight for much of the year.
Other Cases of Child Vegans Suffering Severe Nutritional Deficiencies
Sadly, this is not the first time vegans have been accused of child abuse though it may be the first case involving crippling bone damage. More typically, vegan babies end up in the hospital from malnutrition caused by the use of soy milk instead of infant formula.
Given soy milk alone, babies end up with severe vitamin, mineral, fatty acid, and amino acid deficiencies, which is why soy formula manufacturers are required by law to add methionine and other nutrients that are critical for a baby’s growth.
In 1990, the FDA investigated after a two month old girl in California was hospitalized with severe malnutrition. Her parents had fed her soy milk instead of soy formula. Because of this and a similar incident in Arkansas involving the SoyMoo brand of soy milk, the FDA issued a warning on June 13, 1990. Since then, most brands of soy milk include warning labels in tiny print on their packages.
Clearly, voluntary warning labels have not been enough, and there have been deaths as well as hospitalizations of vegan babies fed soy milk. Vegan parents in Atlanta were found guilty of the death of their six-month-old baby. To supplement the mother’s inadequate supply of breast milk the parents had fed their son soy milk and apple juice. The baby was only 3 1/2 pounds when he died of starvation. (3)
The sad truth is that numerous vegans have been charged and found guilty of unintentionally starving their children from all across the globe, including parents in Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Australia, and the United States among others. (4-10)
Vegan Breastfeeding Dangerous Too
In France, a vegan couple was sentenced to 5 years in prison for the death of their 11-month-old daughter. The baby, who was only 12.5 pounds at the time of her death, had been exclusively breastfed by a vegan mother.
An autopsy showed her to be not only severely underweight and malnourished but severely deficient in Vitamins A and B12. (2, 11-12)
The mother had cared enough to breastfeed, but had an inadequate supply of poor quality milk because of the severe nutritional limitations of her plant-based diet.
While veganism for very young children can be catastrophic, the tragic case of the 12-year-old Scottish girl illustrates that plant based diets for older children are also dangerous. Although finally getting medical treatment, the child’s long-term prognosis for recovery and a normal life remains grim.
Sadly, the word about the dangers of veganism for children doesn’t seem to be getting through to the general public. The continual barrage of highly flawed propaganda-ridden, documentaries such as What The Health guarantees that more well-intentioned but seriously misinformed vegan child malnourishment cases are likely to follow.
References
(1) Parents of 12-Year-Old Vegan Girl Who Has Degenerative Condition May Face Charges
(2) French Vegans Charged with Neglect After Baby’s Death from Nutritional Deficiencies
(3) Vegan Couple Serving Life Sentences for Starving Baby to Death
(4) Vegan Couple Who Fed Child Only Raw Fruit and Vegetables Charged with Murder
(5) Sydney vegan couple starved 20-month-old girl leaving her toothless and with rickets
(6) Baby Death: Parents Convicted of Killing Son with a Diet of Vegetable Milk
(7) Swedish Parents Jailed for Almost Starving Vegan Toddler to Death
(8) Strict vegan parents starved their baby of nutrients so badly that the one-year-old developed cerebral palsy and was in intensive care for a month with rashes and internal bleeding
(9) Italian baby raised on a vegan diet hospitalized for severe malnutrition, removed from parents
(10) Vegan couple will serve life sentences for starving baby to death, Georgia court rules
(11) French Couple Sentenced to 5 Years in Jail for Vegan Breastfeeding Death of 11 Month Old Baby
(12) Vegan Parents Face Jail
I don’t really understand why Vegans don’t accept the fact Veganism it is not meant for children. Sorry, but if this history will start with a Condition related to eat consumption YOU WILL BE s blaming Meat eaters with joy mentioning all this bad habits and related diseases of eat met in daily basis. When it comes to take it back you damn cry! – and that shows one of the most risky things of many vegetarians Don’t take critic back –
Children need other diet, tons of vegetables and just farm animals (white meat) it is a great supplement of minerals and nutritions. My daughter herself; never accept meat when little child until she was about 5. I never force her to eat me I knew she didn’t like it but I feed her with farm animals as meat and fish she was perfectly healthy. She use to eat very few meat in daily basis and that’s her taste. Nowadays she would eat anything I’ve cooked she is about 10, I never force her to eat or not to eat meat. I think children should be never force to follow your eating habits. unless you are great in that, and must of people I know -including vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters – we aren’t.
My husband and I practice a vegan diet only when we are at home, we are not anti meat, we just enjoy the practice and it helps my stomach (I have IBS). We seem healthier since we have started, and we both lost fat. We have more energy and feel better after eating. I do not believe any of the parents of any of the malnutritioned children were practicing a proper vegan diet. You list all these children who have died of malnutrition that were on a vegan diet, but I could do the same for all the children that were lacking vitamins and such from a plant and animal based diet… In both cases it boils down to the parents having a bad diet. A bad animal based diet can do every bit as much harm as a bad vegan diet.
You sound exactly like the misinformed, ignorant, obstinate parents who think they can impose a vegan diet on their children, refusing to believe it is bad for children because they do it for themselves. It’s a choice for yourself, as an ADULT, but please don’t preach that it is okay for children, when study after study, and death after death, says it is not.
This girl was abused!!! plan and simple. If she were truly fed a vegan diet and went outside to play, this would never have happened. There is more calcium in almond milk than cow milk. Plus almond milk also contains vitamins A & D!!!!!!
Wow
while a person can absolutely survive on a vegan diet, the fact of the matter is we are supposed to ingest animal products.
Just too many comments to read through them all! Years ago there were two kinds of diabetes (still are) and they were called Juvenile Diabetes and Adult Onset Diabetes. But now because so many kids are eating crap which includes dairy and processed meats that they are developing Adult Onset Diabetes that they changed the names to Type I and Type II. There are way more children that aren’t vegan and are unhealthy with Type II diabetes than are unhealthy vegan children! How about doing some stories on those kids that are basically dying from obesity! Of course there are some parents that don’t know how to feed their children healthy vegan diets but so many more that are feeding their children unhealthy non-vegan diets!! Do some research people on animal products, especially dairy and you will see how unhealthy it is for humans. Human breast milk for human babies, cow’s milk for baby calves! Pretty damn simple to figure that out!
the idea is anything in excess can be bad for you. yes most of our meat is tainted with hormones antibiotics and downright dirty practices that make most meats unhealthy for you. but a healthy balanced diet includes everything, there are holes in vegetarian and vegan diets that must be filled. to have a healthy diet like that the answer would be a supplement, but does not the very need for a supplement scream the fact that the said diet is deficient? a diet that takes in account all nutritional needs without over doing any one part is the answer. healthy untainted meat non GMO foods and moderation is the key yes it takes work and planning on your part but it can be done. we feed our family by breeding rabbits for meat as well as hunting for a great portion of our other meats. deer, javelina etc. our garden and food storage provides an amazing amount of food that we know what went into it and where it came from. you dont need a ton of land to do it. most of our garden is a container garden and the rabbit hutches take up minimal space as they are designed properly for small spaces. local co-ops provide fresh unpasturized clean milk and dairy products free of over processing and chemical laden feeds. but hey thats just us. for me its just natural selection. those unable to cope will not survive. leaving the population that much more viable.
I was raised vegan. I had very sporadic periods, about twice a year through my teens and early twenties. Ever since I added meat into my diet I have had them every 32 days like clockwork. Vegan diets are a great detox, but I would say they are not appropriate for long term health.
Hmm… I respect where you’re coming from on this, @Ravenwyn, but I don’t think I comprehend how veganism might not be considered appropriate for long term health.
You see, as *I* understand it (and to partially reiterate a previous post), there have been healthy, thriving vegetarians and vegans for as long as there have been humans. Some were so do to moral or ethical concern, others due to resource utilization issues, others due to cultural taboos. All other factors being equal, the veg(etari)ans have thrived, and continue to do so. For some more recent historical examples of vegans, we can look at Pythagoras and the subsequent the “Pythagoreans” (as vegans were called for the following 1300 years), along with a plethora of like-minded contemporaries (e.g. goo.gl/lgDBL). Buddhists, Jainists, et al., have been doing grand as veg(etari)ans since around the 6th century BCE. There are many more examples, but the point is that veganism is clearly a viable option for humans.
In fact, it’s well established that when humans consume the flesh, secretions, et al., of animals, it causes diseases in them at a much, much higher rate than it does in those who don’t. These consist primarily of a range of heart diseases and cancers (colorectal and breast cancers in particular), but include a long list of fairly nasty ailments. Given the increased risk of contracting these illnesses and that consuming animals is clearly not a necessity for humans, doesn’t this mean that doing is actually less health-some rather than more so?
All vegans suck.
Bacon is life.
Now all you grass eating morons go eat a cheeseburger, you stupid hippie clowns!
Class. Real class.
Ssshhh. Don’t feed the trolls.