{"id":17746,"date":"2021-07-28T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=17746"},"modified":"2021-07-02T14:27:27","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T18:27:27","slug":"german-vegan-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/07\/28\/german-vegan-children\/","title":{"rendered":"German Vegan Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are very few studies of vegan children, so it was\nexciting to see that German researchers had recently published results from the\nVegChi Youth Study. This study, from three study centers in Germany, provides\nan interesting look at vegan children\u2019s growth and diet. The study subjects\nwere all German children and adolescents, 6-18 years old. There were 115 vegans,\n149 vegetarians, and 137 nonvegetarians. The children and teens seemed to be\ngrowing normally and there was no significant difference in height, weight, or\nBMI among the groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The vegans seemed\nto be aware of the need to have reliable sources of vitamin B12. Close to 90%\nof them used a vitamin B12 supplement. This was reflected in lab results. Approximately\n8% of the vegans were categorized as likely deficient in vitamin B12 compared\nto 13% of vegetarians and 4% of nonvegetarians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     All three groups of\nchildren had adequate median protein intakes. In contrast, all groups had\nmedian calcium intakes below German recommendations with the vegan group having\nthe lowest intake. The median calcium intake of the vegan children was less\nthan half of what is recommended.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     On average, the\nvegan children had the lowest blood cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol\nconcentrations. They also had the highest intakes of iron, zinc, vitamin C, and\nfolate and the lowest intake of added sugars. These results suggest that a\nvegan diet can meet the nutritional needs of children and teens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alexy U,\nFischer M, Weder S, et al. Nutrient intake and status of German children and\nadolescents consuming vegetarian, vegan or omnivore diets: Results of the VeChi\nYouth Study. Nutrients. 2021;13(5):1707.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more about vegan children and teens, see: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/family\/kidsindex.htm<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about calcium in a vegan diet, see: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/nutrition\/calcium.php<\/a>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD There are very few studies of vegan children, so it was exciting to see that German researchers had recently published results from the VegChi Youth Study. This study, from three study centers in Germany, provides an interesting look at vegan children\u2019s growth and diet. The study subjects were all German […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17748,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17746\/revisions\/17748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}