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’m not a proponent of veganism but most of the 12 year Olds I know aren’t mature enough to eat a healthy regular diet, much less a vegan diet. I’m guessing it was a lot of a few things that were liked and not balanced in the least.
I think it is so not fair from parents to push some type of diet on their child who is clearly not thriving on that type of diet. I would go as far as they must be out of their mind. They must have seen some health issues before – were they just simply ignoring them?
Sorry folks … this is an older story. I thought it was from yesterday. Still pertinent information however.
fixed:
“Still misleading information however.”
Katie-
🙂
Thanks for making my day.
Understanding nutrition is vital to any diet. Veganism can work but you must know how to get all the protein, calcium, etc. other ways or your health will suffer.
It would seem to me that there would be more to the story than just feeding their baby vegan. Soy is a known toxin. Couldn’t the soy sugar formula have been the culprit for the ill health, failure to thrive?
Great point, Amy. The story and well as the author of the link are slanted against vegetarians and vegans. Cow eat grass, Are the nutrient deficient???
Humans have a digestive system that is nothing like a cow’s. We are not designed to eat grass.
THANK YOU!
Humans do not have the type of teeth or the type of digestive tracts meat eating animals have — sharp incisors and short intestines with very strong acid allow meat to move along befor putrefying.
Humans are not herbivores or carnivores. Humans are omnivores. Omnivores eat both meat and veg, and historically probably based on environmental (seasonal) availability. We have several kinds of teeth to accommodate the various foods we eat.
Humans are the only species that forcibly removes a baby from its mother so that we can consume the baby’s food. IDK, that seems a little off to me.
Also, when it comes to our canine teeth, they are far duller than any carnivorous animal. Heck, they are even much smaller than gorillas, who are plant-based. Most of our teeth are in fact, molars, made for grinding nutrition from plant foods.
Cows eat plants mainly grass, any bugs they consume are incidental to their diet, not the primary portion of it. Of course commercial meat cattle eat corn, something they were never meant to consume. Mmom, I’m pretty sure your child is “growing” because he’s becoming obese on all that meat and fat, not because he’s really healthy.
No, we have teeth and digestive systems much like other omnivores – we’re similar to pigs, raccoons and bears, all of which exploit both meat and plant food resources with glee.
I see people using this argument all over the place and it makes absolutely no sense – while our teeth/digestive tracts are unlike those of obligate carnivores like cats, we are a lot closer to obligate carnivores than we are to COWS.
I’m a former researcher in human evolutionary biology and there really isn’t a dispute here when it comes to the science. Make your own choices based on your own conscience, but don’t throw out bogus arguments about the natural foods of human beings being exclusively plant based (akin to obligate herbivores). Human beings are definitely well suited for a generalized diet of meat and vegetable based food.
No – No – No! You are all wrong here. Cows are not vegans at all. Pull out grass and take a look. It is full of bugs! They eat ton of bugs! Eat bugs then as cows.
I am not suggesting that people eat grass or bugs. But the plant-based diet has plenty of good proof that it’s a healing way to eat.
You are exactly right here. It is healing if it’s done right way and for short period of time for specific health issuer. Some people do well on it for a long time, as I know, and I don’t want to change their minds. everybody has a choice to make when they are adults. I do worry about vegan kids though. I never sean a single healthy strictly vegan child. Only those that look okay do eat eggs and dairy.
Mmom,
You obviously haven’t met my 100% vegan child, er young adult. He’s been vegan since conception (over 20 years ago). I can count on both hands the number of times in his entire life that he’s been sick. Mostly due to athletic injuries rather than “sickness”
He’s the tall one, slender, full of muscle – not an ounce of fat on him, very athletic. In the spring/summer, you’ll find him most days on the university’s baseball field, playing all 9 innings on the team. In the fall/winter, you’ll find him on the university’s football field, tackling other guys left and right. He gave up playing soccer and basketball only because he got scholarships for baseball and football.
Hmm… he sure sounds sickly to me… NOT!
I don’t believe Vegas vegan even has vegan children. I know plenty of vegans who “white lie” about practically everything. How often they really get sick, whether they are eating meat or dairy products occasionally which would make them not even vegan and also about how great they feel. Always talking about another cleanse or “just giving the nutrients time to do their job” all the while they’re getting skinnier and sicker.
I’m vegan and I’ve never been healthier! She was NOT eating a balanced diet and children should take supplements, as B vitamins are difficult to assimilate on a vegan diet. I have 3 children in their 20’s all healthy vegetarians! 🙂
Exactly, you need supplements on a vegan diet as B vitamins are difficult to assimilate on a vegan diet. I don’t understand why people think veganism is so great when they need a synthetic vitamin to survive – how did vegans survive prior to chemistry? I’m not trying to be smart or rude, I really want to know. I’m a WAPF follower and have no intention of changing, but I’d like to understand what ‘the other side’ think of this. Thanks 🙂
Assimilate is a poor choice of words here. Vegans absorbtion of B vitamins is higher than others, resulting in a slightly lower intake requirement. The issue is abundancy, which is why vegan’s eat fortified foods. And there’s nothing wrong with fortified foods. Paleo’s cant on one hand claim fortified foods as the devil, but ignore correlations between meat and various cancers of the digestive tract, or meat and eggs with heart disease.
As to your other question, it’s highly likely a vegan diet has existed historically, since Jainism has been practiced in India for thousands of years (many Jains consume milk, but not all).
My current diet seems to fit with paleo, although paleo was not my aim. Speaking for myself and for what I have seen from this blog and other WAPF adherents, I’d say none of them ignore the correlations you mentioned. They look into the research models, the data and the conclusions. Then they explain their own understanding of what they have been looking at. They work hard to educate people to get as many as possible to give up factory foods and factory farming. They always have a defense when confronted with poor “scientific” models or conclusions. And they are tireless in their efforts to help people. After many years of declining health I am now reclaiming my health and am more grateful than I can express for their work.
My children don’t need any supplements and they eat lots of animal food as their body call for. They thrive and grow very well. My son was a picky eater and I started him of vegetables, fruits, and grains at 6 m.o. Boy, that was a big mistake. He was not growing well and needed supplements. I started GAPS which is close to paleo diet and he grew like crazy. He did not like it at first, but got a taste very fast. I just thought he was a small boy and it had nothing to do with his diet, but now I know he was not doing good. My baby girl started on egg yoke, liver, fish, and meat. She is very healthy, grew well on this food. She eats all soups very well and exited to try anything. She just looks very healthy and our doctor is very pleased to see my kids doing so well. I repeat it again, we don’t need supplement vitamins at all. Eat your vitamins! Eat it form food! If you can’t get it out of food then you doing it all wrong.
I don’t see how vegan diet si good when you have to take supplements to have all the minerals and vitamins the human body needs. And when you come to think of it those vitamins are chemically made in a way or another, not to healthy isn’t it?
Personally, the only supplement I take is a B12 every month or so, which is produced for pill form by the same bacteria that lives in the soil and which imparts B12 to the the exposed flesh of dead animals. As such, I supposed I’m just not getting exposed to all those nasty chemicals you mention, Szepacher Antal. Although one has to wonder: if avoiding taking artificial chemicals is important to someone, then how do they justify consuming things like animal’s bodies and cow’s milk (with all of the artificial hormones, synthesized antibiotics, et al., that they contain)?
On a related note though, there actually are several studies that generally support the idea vegans are lacking in certain vitamins and need to be sure to include them through the food they eat (or via supplements). Specifically, the findings are that first-world vegans regularly have a deficiency of calcium, iodine, and B12. However, those same studies also show first-world omnivores to be regularly deficient in calcium, fiber, folate, iodine, magnesium, vitamin C, and vitamin E (ref goo.gl/HMGA6). Now, in either case, adopting a stricter diet or a regular vitamin regimen solves the problem, but the point as it effects this conversation is that it’s a red-herring to claim that “vegan diets are no good because you have to take vitamins to avoid deficiencies” without adding “but not as bad as omnivores diets”, eh? =o)
Also do feel its important to add we consume little to no soy. We’re also dairy free for 3 years now 🙂
better to have no soy
Rebecca Kummerer Redding, how does Paleo go to far? Paleo has an emphasis on quality, not quantity of meat products. I eat more vegetables than anything else eating Paleo, then healthy fat, then meat that is grass fed or pastured.
Paleo goes too far in the same way veganism goes too far. They both stray too far from what is “typical” and are therefore demonized because people “OMGZ CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT MAHH CARBS” or “BUT I NEED MAHH BACON”.
Isn’t the case of the 12-year-old Scottish girl from 2008? A follow up on how she recovered would be interesting.
Yes, that story is from 2008. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,364746,00.html