Vegetarian teens may be masking eating disorders
November 13th, 2005In vegetarian diets, it can be challenging to maintain a balanced nutritient intake. This is especially true among adolescent girls, who have an increased need for calcium and other micronutrients, and who sometimes try to become “vegetarian” by simply eliminating the meat in their existing diets.
From Macleans:
Girls as young as 14 are developing osteoporosis because of a lack of calcium.
Teenage girls are limiting their calorie intake under the guise of vegetarianism — and developing problems such as brittle bones as a result, says a Toronto doctor.
“These are kids who don’t even have severe anorexia. They are just restricting, and we’re starting to see osteoporosis in this group and having a devil of a time correcting it, whether we give them calcium, hormones or the osteoporosis drugs.”
In her experience, “vegetarian” girls don’t take the kind of care with their diet that most true vegetarians do — they don’t eat vegetables or vegetable protein (such as beans, lentils and other legumes), but they do eat starchy carbohydrates like pasta.
Link: Vegetarian teens may be masking eating disorders (Maclean’s - October 26, 2005)
Tags: nutrition, family, vegetarian, anorexia, eating disorders
