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Vegan diets and child development: What's the real evidence?

The Vegan Society - Press Release

The claim that milk and meat are vital to children's development, which swept though the media earlier this week, originated from an American press release based mainly on a two-year study of 555 undernourished Kenyan children, completed in December 2000 and published in the Journal of Nutrition in November 2003. (1)

As usual, the original information evolved beyond all recognition as it moved from scientific paper to press release to soundbite: "There's absolutely no question that it's unethical for parents to bring up their children as strict vegans", proclaimed certain sections of the media. (2)

The scientific paper compared groups of Kenyan children given three food supplements: meat, milk and vegetable oil. Three measures of mental development were taken: Raven's visuo-spatial test, verbal meaning and arithmetic. On all three measures, the vegetable oil group beat the milk group and on two measures the vegetable oil group beat the meat group.

"Even on the paper cited, the soundbite attributed to Professor
Allen is clearly far fetched" said Stephen Walsh, author of
Plant Based Nutrition and Health.

But there is far stronger evidence than this that vegan diets support healthy development in children. In the UK a study of 39 vegan children found that

"the growth and development of children reared on both vegan and
vegetarian diets appears normal." (3)

In the USA, a study of 400 vegan children reached the same conclusion. (4)

Both these studies were carried out in the 1980s and the results should be well known to any scientist presuming to comment on vegan diets and child development.

The soundbite that went the rounds this week comes from taking the results of the one test on undernourished Kenyan children where meat seemed to have a better impact than vegetable oil and ignoring all the contrary evidence both from the Kenyan study and from direct studies of western vegans.

"This is not science but blatant spin", said Vegan Society Chair
Alex Bourke, "and representatives of the media who have
uncritically passed on the soundbite have been sadly misled."

For further information on the benefits of a vegan diet for animals, people and the environment - both in Africa and in the West - see Plant Based Nutrition and Health or contact a Vegan Society spokesperson.

REFERENCES:

(1) http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/133/11/3965S.pdf

(2) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4282257.stm

http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2005/0218micronutrients.shtml

(3)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=
abstract&list_uids=3414589

(4)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=
Abstract&list_uids=2771551


CONTACTS:

Alex Bourke, Vegan Society Chair, 07956 169214

Sandra Hood BSc (Hons), State Registered Dietitian
Author of Raising your Vegan Infant - With Confidence, 07977 219306

Stephen Walsh PhD, Vegan Society Nutrition Spokesperson
Author of Plant Based Nutrition and Health, 07967 361510
PUBLICATIONS:

Plant Based Nutrition and Health, published September 2003.
For review copy, call 020 7928 7459 or email clarkev@parliament.uk

Also for information on Raising your Vegan Infant - With Confidence,
to be published later this year.

Link: Raising children as vegans 'unethical', says professor
Link: The Vegan Society

Date: 2005-02-22
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Newssource: EVANA

 

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