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Is your child thinking about becoming a vegetarian or vegan? Research this week shows the potential benefits—and perils—for kids who stick to these diets.
Researchers examined the scientific literature on these diets for children. They found that kids on plant-based diets tended to consume more of certain important nutrients like fiber, while possibly having better heart health. At the same time, however, they were more likely to become deficient in other nutrients like vitamin B-12 and iron.
“These findings underscore the need for careful dietary planning and supplementation in lacto-ovo-vegetarian and vegan children,” the authors wrote in their paper, published Thursday in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.
The international team of researchers (Australia, Italy, and the U.S.) analyzed data from 59 studies that collectively involved 48,626 participants under the age of 18. These studies compared the nutritional and health outcomes of children on a typical omnivore, vegan, or lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet, the latter allowing people to have some dairy or egg but no meat.
Vegetarian and vegan children consumed more fiber, iron, folate, vitamin C, and magnesium on average compared to omnivores, the researchers found, and they ate fewer calories in general. They also had lower levels of total and LDL cholesterol (aka, the “bad” kind) and were leaner on average.
But these kids also tended to have less protein, fat, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and zinc in their diets. Vegan children in particular had very low calcium intake. Vegetarian children were also slightly shorter than omnivores, while vegans had “shorter stature.” And though these children on average still had most of their nutritional needs fulfilled, vegetarians had a greater risk of iron deficiency and anemia, while vegans had a greater risk of vitamin B12 deficiency.
The results shouldn’t necessarily scare kids or their families away from pursuing a plant-based diet, the researchers say. And other research has shown that well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets can provide adequate nutrition. For both kids and adults, though, it’s important to keep an eye on and fill in any potential nutritional gaps.
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“Our findings suggest that a balanced approach is essential, with families paying close attention to certain nutrients—particularly vitamin B12, calcium, iodine, iron and zinc—to ensure their children get everything they need to thrive,” said study author Wolfgang Marx, a researcher at the Food & Mood Center at Deakin University in Australia, in a statement from the study’s publisher.
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