Are restrictive diets bad for children?
Are parents acting irresponsibly by imposing their own eating regimes on children? Are there actual dangers – or are they exaggerated? Sue Quinn investigates
THE SANE VIEW
*SOURCE: COMPLEMENTARY FEEDING: A POSITION PAPER BY THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR PAEDIATRIC GASTROENTEROLOGY, HEPATOLOGY, AND NUTRITION (ESPGHAN) COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION, LEAD AUTHOR PROFESSOR MARY FEWTRELL
Can excluding certain foods from your child’s plate damage their health? Recent newspaper headlines have claimed that parents who choose vegan diets, for example, for their children might be causing them “irreversible damage”. Certainly there’s no shortage of so-called healthy eating trends that involve avoiding certain foods: raw, clean, gluten free, dairy free, paleo, low carb, vegetarian and vegan to name just a few. And some of these fads appear to be filtering through to children.
The British Nutrition Foundation says 20 per cent of UK kids adhere to some form of elimination diet, yet only 3-6 per cent have a diagnosed medical condition that makes such exclusions necessary. Meanwhile, the number of vegans in the UK has increased by 260 per cent over the past decade and 2,000 people a week are now giving up meat. It’s probable that the number of vegetarian and vegan children is rising, too.