Young Vegetarians May Suffer from Eating Disorders
Jacksonville – Becoming a vegetarian can be a rewarding experience. Ethical considerations aside, we all need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Lowering our cholesterol and becoming heart healthy early in life is important as we age. However, certain studies have shown that not everyone, who is choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, is doing it for the right reasons.
In a 1998 Minnesota study, researchers found that young adult and teens, who suffer from an eating disorder, often choose a vegetarian diet as a weight-loss tool. This study found that 19.6% of the current vegetarians and 20.9% of former vegetarians practiced radical weight-control habits, such as using diet pills or laxatives and inducing vomiting.
In another study of young adult and teen Vegetarianism, published in the Journal of the ADA (American Dietetic Association), researcher recommended that in order to detect eating disorders in young adults, doctors should ask their patients about their vegetarian status and they suggested, “Parents should probe their children about their motives in choosing a vegetarian diet.”
The scientific information about the benefits of a vegan diet and the hazards of a meat and dairy diet are well known in the medical and scientific community.
The American Dietetic Association also heartily endorses a vegan diet at their website:
“Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits…and have been reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.”
And then there are the ethical problems with eating meat and dairy.