National Post (National Edition)
Is vegan diet making your child ill?
A HOLLYWOOD COUPLE FOUND IT’S NOT EASY STAGING A FOOD INTERVENTION
Eat your greens! It has long been the battle cry of parents of teenagers everywhere. But it appears to be a little less necessary for the current generation, with numbers rising across North America and Europe.
Vocal vegans include 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who has spoken about convincing her parents to go vegan (“I made them feel so guilty,” she told an interviewer. “My dad is now vegan; my mom, she tries, she’s 90 per cent vegan”), as well as teen favourite Ariana Grande.
However, going vegan is not without its issues. This week, actress Jada Pinkett Smith admitted she and husband Will Smith had to stage a “vegan-intervention” for their 21-year-old son Jaden. “We realized he wasn’t getting enough protein,” she said on her Facebook Watch series, Red Table Talk.
“He was wasting away,” she continued. “He just looked drained, he was just depleted. He wasn’t getting the nutrients.” Will added: “He had the dark circles under his eyes, there was even a little greyness to his skin. And we got nervous.”
Jaden, who has since switched to vegetarianism, said: “I was just eating, like, two meals a day. And maybe one.” He also revealed the night before he was due to attend the Californian music festival Coachella, he became unwell, due to his vegan diet: “I was not doing good. I wasn’t looking good, I wasn’t feeling good, I wasn’t sleeping,” he explained, before admitting he was eventually admitted to hospital with nausea and dizziness.
“We all have issues with food in this family,” said Jada, who has encouraged other families to pay attention to children’s eating habits.
After all, can veganism, like clean eating before it, run the risk of being used as a mask for disordered or restricted eating?
“While vegan diets can be healthy, they can also be very badly followed, especially by teenagers and young people,” says dietitian Helen Bond, who is a spokeswoman for the British Dietetic Association.
Young people are also increasingly going vegan for ethical and environmental reasons. “A young person who becomes passionate about animal welfare or the environment will find plenty of material on YouTube to further convince them,” says Bond. “However, without professional advice, this interest in a genuinely worthwhile cause can lead to restrictive eating.
“While I wouldn’t advise against a teenager going vegan, I would flag up to parents that the teenage years are peak bone-growing years. This is particularly true for girls. The latest figures from the government’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey show that 22 per cent of teenage girls are calcium deficient, compared to 11 per cent of teenage boys. Your calcium needs are greater than ever as a teenager.
“So if you remove dairy, you’ll fall further short on calcium. There are plantbased alternatives of course, like oat milk, that are often fortified with calcium and vitamin D, which helps the absorption of calcium.”
Bond also points out that teenagers, especially menstruating girls, need to ensure they’re getting enough iodine and iron and says the latest studies also show 54 per cent of teenage girls have low intakes of iron. “If they’re not making up for a lack of iron-rich meat in their diet, they may suffer from fatigue, light-headedness, brittle nails and headaches,” she says.
And then, of course, there’s the murkier issue of disordered eating: “We know teenagers and young people get a lot of their nutritional advice from social media,” says Bond. “If a young person, curious about veganism, strays on to Instagram or YouTube, they’ll quickly be led down a rabbit hole where so-called Instagurus, who have little authority on nutrition, will offer advice that could be hugely damaging to a growing child’s body.”
“Sometimes, people with eating disorders can use veganism as an excuse to eat only vegetables or fruit,” says vegan Flic Everett, managing editor of Vegan Living magazine. “This is in no way a healthy approach, and it’s crucial that parents keep an eye on what teenagers are eating at mealtimes: toast or porridge and nut milk for breakfast is fine, a handful of blueberries isn’t.”
So what can concerned parents do?
“It’s essential that teenagers get enough vitamins and omega 3 and 6,” says Everett. "Vitamin B12 can also be lacking in a vegan diet, so they must eat a balanced range of foods, including plenty of protein such as tofu, pulses and seitan (made with vital wheat gluten). Stock up on frozen protein — most supermarkets now sell vegan Quorn and meat substitutes and they’re handy to have, plus lots of nuts and seeds.
“If a parent doesn’t know much about vegan nutrition, I strongly recommend they look at the Vegan Society website, or buy a book on the subject to help. I’d suggest sitting down to investigate the nutritional aspects of veganism together and work out a shopping list. The more involved you are, the more likely your child is to have a healthy diet.
“It also makes it easier to convince them you know what you’re talking about. A vegan diet isn’t automatically a healthy diet, so the more you know, the better placed you are to buy the right foods.”
When author Fiona Gibson’s then 16-year-old daughter Erin told her mother she wanted to be vegan three years ago, her heart sank: “I just thought she was jumping on a bandwagon. Among her friends, there was a huge wave of veganism with probably a third of her friends turning vegan. As well as the problem of preparing separate meals, I was also aware that a teenager can have a really trashy vegan diet and live on Oreos, Pringles and chips. So as a family we had a crash course in veganism.
“We live in Glasgow where there are more vegan restaurants per capita than any other British city, but a lot offer deep-fried pretend fish and chips, like fried tofu, so we bought some good vegan recipe books. Despite my initial reaction, Erin’s veganism has influenced my diet and I eat less meat now and after she showed me some stuff on dairy farming, I don’t eat as much cheese or slosh cow’s milk on everything. I have oat milk now. And while I wouldn’t turn down a lamb curry if I was having dinner at a friend’s house, I eat more vegan soups.
“Erin is now in her second year of university and manages it really well. I worry about her levels of B12 and iron and encourage her to get her levels checked at the doctors. But her veganism has changed the family’s approach to eating.”
“My biggest advice to parents is to neither dismiss nor patronize their child’s pledge to go vegan,” says Bond.
“It’s worth suggesting stepping stones, like vegetarianism, or a pescatarian diet where you eat fish. Or even a plant-based Mediterranean diet, which is low in meat and high on pulses, seeds and vegetables. They could then make little inroads into veganism. Either way, it’s better to work with your child than against them.”