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
“More typically, vegan babies end up in hospital from malnutrition caused by the use of soy milk instead of infant formula”
ummm… why would the baby be given formula? babies are meant to be breastfed. my friends and i are discussing this on our mommy group fb page, and are in agreement that someone who would do so much research as to be vegan, would know how important human milk is. are we just ASSUMING that a baby id receiving soy milk instead of breastmilk, or soy formula? are we just ASSUMING that if the babies are being given soy milk and not breastmilk for some reason, that the parents aren’t giving vitamins? we also discussed the ridiculous claim of child abuse… so choosing a vegan diet is abusive, yet feeding your child crap and causing them to be obese and suffer from life long health ailments is not? PLEASE.
im a meat eater…but have many vegetarian and vegan friends… all are incredibly healthy, and knowlegable on their lifestyle.
this article seems incredibly one sided.
Can you call a breast fed baby vegan?
uh. yeah.
if mom is vegan, her breastmilk is vegan.
If moms a vegan then she almost certainly won’t produce enough milk for her baby and then comes the soy formula. Yikes
These cases sound like bad parenting, but not exclusively because they choose a vegan diet for their children. Clearly, they didn’t seek medical advice, and did not use common sense. I think it’s possible to raise healthy children on a vegan diet if mothers are aware of what they eat during their pregnancy, and use precaution. It’s important that they do the proper research.
It’s easy to be vegan and listen to your body and do what’s best for YOU. But when you have a kid you can’t feel what their body is feeling. You can’t KNOW if they are deprived and since they are so young they don’t know either. I work with animals all day. Cats are strictly carnivores and humans and dogs are known to be omnivores. We can eat both and we should! I was also taught that lactating, pregnant and growing bodies (aka infants and kids and teens)and geriatric actually need different caloric intakes as well as nutrients then a a regular adult. Some need less some need more.
Another example why forcing veganism on growing children is child abuse and should be a crime.
Allow me to fix your comment:
“Another example why forcing a poor, nutritionally-lacking diet on growing children is child abuse and should be a crime.”
It wasn’t the veganism itself, it was the specific foods the parents were feeding the child. Unfortunately, the author of this article did not supply that information.
Who said a blog has to be non-biased. If I blogged about a topic I felt was just I wouldn’t try to find articles to contradict my beliefs.
I love your website and most of what you preach, but I have to say that this article is complete propaganda and incredibly irresponsible.
For one thing, there are different types of vegans. There are those who eat a bunch of soy-based and processed “food,” and there are those who eat a balanced whole foods, plant-based diet. And then there who eat both processed and whole foods.
We don’t know what kind of diet this girl and her family were on. It’s dangerous to make assumptions, and even further to create absolute truths out of thin air.
There are many people who do fine on a vegan diet. However, it isn’t for everyone — just as eating animal-based food isn’t for everyone either. I went vegan for a short period of time and found that I didn’t do well on it. It’s all about listening to your body.
What this girl’s parents did was clearly wrong, but so is pushing your beliefs as absolute truths for everyone.
Nutrition is not always about “beliefs”. I realize that beliefs often come into play for vegans or vegetarians or even for some others, but this site and many others are about information that is evaluated aside from a belief that any particular food must be abstained from for moral or ethical reasons. This site has, in fact, pushed the idea that not everyone needs to eat the same way. The blogger here has often refrained from sharing all the details of her own diet in order to discourage the idea of people thinking it must be optimal or must be what they need to try. If you want to better understand what is “pushed” here, you can read through the archives and you should also read the book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, which I believe was influential with the blogger.
Thank you for this reply…you have hit the nail on the head. Im reading all these comments by “offended vegans” who are way off with their points. The article isnt saying vegans need to be tortured and burnt alive as some of the people on here would have you believe. Its amazing how an article about a POOR STARVED CHILD has become a podium for Vegans to express how unhealthy meat and dairy fed children are and to brag about how welll their Vegan kids are doing….pftt.
In order for the vegan life style to be healthy you have to be very diligent. It is possible but I would guess only 1-2% of vegans eat right!!!
exactly.you would GUESS. don’t guess, give us FACTS.
did you know that 69.7% of statistics are made up on the spot?
someone commented that this article made the blog seem slanted. Hmmm, I think it plainly states that she is a WAPF, Nourishing Traditions, whole food, balanced diet food writer….
Dear VEGANS,
Please see articles such as this as quality information such as is also available at the Weston Price Foundation. I appreciate this type of information, and I love dairy ( raw milk dairy especially ) . There are also many articles praising the virtues of fruits and vegetables, and I certainly do not take offense to this as ANTI- OMNIVORE !!! I also love fruits and vegetables.
Thank you, Sarah, for another excellent article praising the nutrition of real dairy products.
I am also enjoying your current articles on the raw milk fast. THANKS TO SARAH HHE !!!
I think this article really highlights the dangers of diet extremes. A well rounded diet is best, no matter which nutritional philosophy you adhere to.