One of my first "Big Dates" was a Cotillion dance in 8th grade...or was it seventh? Cotillion was an attempt by a local "grande dame" to nurture refined manners in a group of young teens along with ballroom dancing instruction. Once a week we would walk a couple blocks from the middle school to the K of C Hall located on the 3rd floor of a downtown building. A virtual skyscraper in our town! Guys wanting a little money would hang about by the door and help the instructor out of her car ...open the door. These kind of brownie points paid a couple bucks cash! If you were really good you would carry some of her stuff up the 3 flights of worn wooden stairs. We would then partner up and learn the rhumba, the foxtrot, the bossa nova, jitterbug, waltz etc. Every so often we would switch partners and during the session you would dance with each of the 50 girls a couple times. All very open stance and supervised...but still at that age, and for a nerdy guy still in his Clark Kent frames it was something of a thrill.
Jenny (names have been changed to protect the sweet and innocent) was a cute little girl from my neighborhood. She lived about 4 blocks away so I only saw her when I was walking home. Many days Jenny would be waiting by that tree till I passed by and smile nervously saying "Hi". I too would say "Hi". God only knows what disasters would have occured if I had stopped to talk any further! But this was earthshaking stuff making my head spin on the rest of my walk home.
Well this brazen flirting continued and the pitch of her "Hi's" became higher and happier. When it was time to invite someone to the dance I found the number in the phone book and spent an hour or so making myself nervous. One of Jenny's 300 sisters answered the phone and I heard much yelling for her and thumping up and down stairs...I nearly hung up in fear! This was much worse than when the german shephard down the street was chomping on my leg as I rode past on my bike!
I don't remember the conversation with Jenny...I may have blacked out. But I know it was successful because weeks later I found myself at her house in a suit in this predicament with an enourmous corsage and no clue of how to pin it to her dress. We sat with friends and ate, all joking around. Jenny and I actually remembered the different dances and impressed the leader of the orchestra a little. Music, friends and dancing with a childhood crush.
Raising a Healthy Vegetarian Teen
Jessica is a competitive runner. One night at dinner, when her mother passes the chicken, Jessica says, “No thanks, I’ve decided to become a vegetarian.” Paul’s mother is concerned about the adequacy of his diet, since he is excluding many foods without adding nutritionally equivalent substitutes. She also misses Paul at family meals; he says there’s not much point in joining the family because they eat foods he can’t eat and seeing meat on the table bothers him.
These real-life scenarios of vegetarian teenagers are shared by author and researcher Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD, in her new book “I’m, Like, SO Fat!”: Helping Your Teen Make Healthy Choices About Eating and Exercise in a Weight-Obsessed World. After conducting one of the largest and most comprehensive studies on eating patterns and weight-related issues in adolescents (www.epi.umn.edu/research/eat), Neumark-Sztainer knows how American teenagers eat. Called Project EAT (Eating Among Teens), the University of Minnesota study was designed to track eating patterns, physical activity, dieting behaviors, and weight concerns of 4,746 adolescents and 900 parents.
Now more than ever, vegetarian families are bringing this once-alternative dietary choice to the attention of mainstream America. Evidence of the progress is everywhere: McDonald’s now offers an array of meatless salads; school lunch programs now offer vegetarian entrees; and meat alternatives, such as tofu, are sold in most supermarkets.
Taking a stand for animal rights by choosing not to eat meat fits well with teenagers wanting to be part of a cause. As they try to sort through their own philosophies on avoiding meat, poultry, or fish, teens may use their newfound food beliefs as a platform to further separate themselves from concerned family members. Many of these teens are looking out for the animal’s health but ironically can easily neglect their own health in the process.
How Many Teens Are Vegetarian?
In 2000, The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG), a nonprofit group working to educate people about vegetarianism and related issues, conducted a Roper poll on 1,240 youths to track the number of young vegetarians in the United States (www.vrg.org/journal/vj2001jan/2001janteen.htm). They found that 2% of youth aged 6 to 17 never eat meat, fish, or poultry.
More recently, Project EAT found a 4% increase from the Roper poll results, showing that a total of 6% of the teens surveyed said they were vegetarians. The study also found that the first step many teens take on their way to becoming vegetarians is to eliminate red meat from their diet.
Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, coauthor of the American Dietetic Association’s position paper on vegetarianism and nutrition advisor for the VRG, gives feedback on why teens are choosing to become vegetarian. “In my experience, teens become vegetarian because of concerns about animals, the environment, health reasons, and a desire to emulate a peer or a celebrity,” she comments. “I do not feel that more teens are becoming vegetarian because of body image or weight issues than are becoming vegetarian for environmental or animal issues.”
Concerned Parents
So what do parents need to know if they want to raise children on a meatless diet or if a child suddenly announces that he or she is now a vegetarian? To start, parents must be aware of the nutritional needs teenage vegetarians have and how to creatively inspire their teenagers to eat a variety of foods. Finding healthy foods their children genuinely enjoy can go a long way toward ensuring that their children’s nutritional needs are being met. Nutrients that are usually supplied by meat, dairy, and egg products must be worked back into a teen’s diet to meet the recommended dietary allowance for protein, calcium, iron, and vitamin B12.
How concerned are mothers who are already vegetarian? A mother of three and a vegetarian for more than 17 years, Naomi Arens says she would not mind if her children chose a vegetarian diet. “My kids like lots of vegetarian foods, such as tofu, so they would probably do fine.” She admits that in a “fast-food world,” though, eating vegetarian takes more time and planning, which she believes could be difficult for busy families making the switch.
Fortified juices, soy milk, and supplements provide calcium; one daughter also gets calcium from collards, kale, and broccoli, which the other daughter doesn’t like.
Family Communication Is Key
Communication between parents and teens and the example the parents set matter tremendously. The key to understanding why your child is bent toward this new way of eating is effective communication. Parents need to stay alert and be aware of their own food-related and body image issues and the messages they are sending to their children. Project EAT found that teens whose parents reported eating more fruits, vegetables, and dairy foods were also more likely to eat more of these foods.
Compromise is the best way for a “nonvegetarian” family to adapt to a vegetarian teen. Parents should develop a plan to include the teen in food preparation or grocery shopping. Don’t change everything—your new vegetarian still needs to come to family meals and take the responsibility for the time it takes to eat and plan vegetarian meals.
According to Project EAT, the most common reason in choosing to not eat meat was to maintain or lose weight. Vegans were not as interested in weight control issues. Neumark-Sztainer believes that vegetarianism leading to an eating disorder is the exception rather than the rule. Ilyse Simon, RD, a private practitioner specializing in disordered eating, agrees, commenting that some of the young girls she counsels who are anorexic have become vegetarians because they kept restricting their food intake.
What Teens Are Up Against
It is estimated that teenagers may be the fastest-growing group of vegetarians and often require special resources and support when their families aren’t supportive of their dietary choice.
Lack of proper nutrition can cause teenage vegetarians to become protein malnourished since the meat is removed from the meal mix. And many teens do not realize that just because a vegetarian diet is lower in fat intake, it doesn’t mean it is lower in calories, especially when sugary desserts and snack foods are chosen.
Kevin Cummings, a vegetarian since the age of 12 and now in his late 20s, remembers how hard it was in middle and high school—specifically, dealing with ridicule about his vegetarian diet. Sasha Clark, a 16-year-old vegan since birth, says, “The worst part of being vegan used to be the teasing that I got, and some people ‘pitied’ me because I couldn’t eat what they ate. Clark was interviewed by VegFamily on her story of living as a vegan teen.
Creative Vegetarian Snacking
When a vegetarian teen is in the house, it’s time to get creative with the snack list. Have the house stocked with trail mix, popcorn, pizza, bean tacos, bagels, and dried fruits to keep the “ultimate teen snacker” eating well throughout the day with at least four to five mini-meals. Eating out is easier than ever before for vegetarian teens with the presence of Mexican food chains and many local Chinese, Japanese, and Mediterranean restaurants.
The philosophy of vegetarianism mixed with the unpredictable teenage mind will demand creative nutrition education and communication. The goal must be to foster a vegetarian lifestyle in adolescence that the teen can build on throughout young adulthood. Ultimately, their growth into healthy and informed adult vegetarians will someday influence their nutritional choices for their own children.
