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Being a teenager means experimenting with foolish things like dyeing your hair purple or candy flipping or going door-to-door for a political party. Parents tend to overlook seemingly mild, earnest teen pursuits like joining the Sierra Club, but a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests that another common teen fad, vegetarianism, isn't always healthy.
It isn't implying that vegetarianism is a "eating disorder", it claims it could mask a eating disorder.
Instead, it seems that a significant number of kids experiment with a vegetarian diet as a way to mask an eating disorder, since it's a socially acceptable way to avoid eating many foods and one that parents tend not to oppose.
I have been a veg for over 24 years now, no eating disorder here... and when I compare my health and how I look to those that eat the SAD (Standard American Diet), it works very well for me.
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The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
from the link The ADA's website even contains a series of 'fact sheets' about various food products, sponsored by the same corporations that make them (Monsanto for biotechnology; Procter & Gamble for olestra; Ajinomoto for MSG; the National Association of Margarine Manufacturers for fats and oils).
I wouldn't take ANY advice from a group like this.
__________________
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. ~Henry David Thoreau
To be fair, there is truth to this. My own niece 'lost' a lot of weight when she went vegetarian in 8th grade. What the girls do is this --- they can't eat dinner with the family because they don't eat meat. So, they eat something else at another time --- usually nothing. It can be used to mask an eating disorder, though I am not saying that all teenagers turning or trying out vegetarianism are anorexic.
To be fair, there is truth to this. My own niece 'lost' a lot of weight when she went vegetarian in 8th grade. What the girls do is this --- they can't eat dinner with the family because they don't eat meat. So, they eat something else at another time --- usually nothing. It can be used to mask an eating disorder, though I am not saying that all teenagers turning or trying out vegetarianism are anorexic.
It kinda makes sense for anorexic teens to use vegetarianism as an excuse. Therefore it seems pretty credible to me that the statistics given in the article are correct.
Unfortunately the Time article isn't really helpful about what to make of these numbers. I.e. one should keep in mind that even if "veggie kids" are double as likely to be anorectic than omnivores, the same (or probably even more drastic) can be said about the risk for girls vs. boys. However that doesn't mean that having a girl should be considered a warnings sign.
In reality, kids losing weight fast or aren't ever seen eating anything during family dinner are the things that should make the alarm sound.
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