Final Thoughts and Sources

I hope, with all of the information I've gathered, that I'll be able to present a strong argument about my research question. I still retain my original feelings on the subject, which makes me happy. I did learn more about the right reasons to have these feelings, and what I think are better ways to present these ideas to others. 


For my last round of sources I am looking to the internet.  I am looking through articles about veganism and families or vegetarianism and families to try to find out how families deal with this issue.  I found an article called “Forcing Your Kids to be Vegan” by Avi Vince.  When asked if she would force veganism on her kids she says, “Realistically speaking, my children are most likely going to eat whatever I cook them.  And I cook what I eat.  So they will probably eat far more vegies, fruit and grains than any other kids.  And I wouldn’t do this simply for my beliefs in being a vegan.”  (Vince) The article talks about guiding food choices and not forcing lifestyles.  I think this will be a good opinion source for me when I start talking about that side of my argument.

I found another article that focuses on a different aspect of this argument, but it brings up a lot of the same points.  It’s called “Vegan: Great For Kids” by Kathy Freston.  She has written multiple books about veganism, and seems like a reliable source of information.  This article talks about what to do if you’re the average meat and potato parent and your child comes home one day having decided not to eat meat or dairy any more.  So this isn’t about forcing veganism on your kids, but choosing whether or not to continue to force them to eat things they don’t want to eat.  She talks about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that our children are in the worst physical shape of any generation in history, and she talks about abnormally high levels of things like cholesterol in high school students.

The last thing I found, which really does seem to advocate for a restrictive vegetarian or vegan diet for kids is an article published in the Environmental News Network.  It states: “A medical doctor as respected as the late Benjamin Spock can have a major influence on the dietary habits of a generation of children. Since the publication in 1998 of the seventh edition of Spock's Baby and Child Care, more and more parents are raising their children as vegetarians or vegans.

Spock, who died at the age of 94 just before the new version of his book was published, advised no meat or dairy products for children.  In the new edition of his famous book, published in 1946, Spock recommended for the first time a vegan diet -- a diet free of all animal products -- for children as the optimal diet for human nutrition. This recommendation sparked a debate among doctors, nutritionists, and parents about what is the right mix of food for children.” (Vegetarian Babies Boom in U.S.)  This is a strong argument on the side of  forcing those choices on children.  It’s a respected doctor stating that you should absolutely feed your children in this way.

Works Cited

Freston, Kathy. "Vegan: Great For Kids!" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 June 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegan-kids-diet_b_877680.html>.

"Vegetarian Babies Boom in U.S." Vegetarian News Network (Sun Valley, ID). N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Nov. 2012.

Vince, Avi. "Forcing Your Kids to Be Vegan." Mamamia. N.p., 16 June 2012. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://www.mamamia.com.au/health-wellbeing/forcing-your-kids-to-be-vega/>.

Vegan Is Love?

For additional research sources, I went to the library.  Yes, I actually physically walked into a library and pulled books off the shelves to find more information.

For my next sources I’m focusing on what children should eat, nutritional guidelines laid down by medical professions, and also trying to focus more on what happens when people are overly controlling about what their kids consume.

One source I chose, and will be checking out from the library to study further is “Into The Mouths of Babes”  by Susan Tate Firkaly.  Firkaly is an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia.  She seems like a reasonably reliable source of information, as she specializes in this field.  One of the reasons I chose this book was the first page I flipped open to said, “Early messages about food can lead to body dissatisfaction for our children.” (Firkaly, 54)  While the general idea here can sit on both sides of the argument about forcing food choices on our kids, I think it will be interesting to explore the nutritional guidelines she offers in this book and see where she sits on the issue.

The next source I chose is the American Medical Association “Complete Guide to Your Children’s Health”  I chose this for specific medical information and scientific evidence about what a child’s body needs.  This book lists specific percentages and proportions that children should eat.  It also states, “Don’t try to control the amount of food your toddler eats, some toddlers react to this kind of pressure by overeating or refusing to eat.” (Kotulak et al, 109) I’m hoping this book gives me some good solid facts to work on when making the case for children needing to eat a variety of foods, in proper proportions, to grow up healthy.

One more source I found that leans toward building healthy eating habits, and not teaching restrictive eating to kids is a book called “Children and Teens Afraid to Eat” by Frances M. Berg.  Berg is a licensed nutritionist, so I find the information in this book to be reliable and valuable.  The title captured me, personally, because I have 4 girls that I’m trying to raise into healthy responsible people, and I don’t want them to grow up with any of the food issues I had and have.  This book starts with a chapter called “Growing up afraid to eat”.  She begins by saying, “America’s children are afraid to eat.  It’s a fear that consumes them, shatters lives, even kills.”  (Berg, 17) It’s a scary statement, which I think was the intention, but it got my attention and makes me want to find out more about where she stands on this subject.

Works Cited

Firkaly, Susan Tate. Into the Mouths of Babes: A Natural Foods Cookbook for Infants & Toddlers. White Hall, VA: Betterway Publications, 1995. Print.

Kotulak, Donna, Dennis Connaughton, and Edward S. Traisman. American Medical Association Complete Guide to Your Children's Health. New York: Random House, 1999. Print.

Finding Sources

While my first source may not turn out to be a great wealth of information as a whole for my topic it does summarize my feelings up to this point on my topic.  There is a section where the author says, “...another reason for letting children make their own food choices was to help them develop their own values.  This is how one vegetarian mom put it: ‘When my daughter grows up and someone asks her why she’s a vegetarian I don’t want her answering ‘Because my mother is.’” (Vegetarian Times 13)

Another source I found is a book called “Nutrition and Diet Therapy: Self-Instructional Approaches” by Peggy S. Stanfield.  This looks promising as a source for some really good scientific information about feeding your children properly.  It goes into great detail about the differences in adult nutritional needs and childhood nutritional needs.  It is not a vegetarian book, is includes recommendations for meat, fish, and dairy needs for all different ages of people. This could be something I turn to when talking about the side of the argument that involves children not being forced into a vegetarian diet, as it does give specific nutritional guidelines.

I found an article written by a doctor who specializes in eating disorders.  It’s a short article, but it makes some very good points that I think I will want to use in my finished pieces.  She says, “Some parents in an attempt to focus on healthy eating can go overboard. Examples of this include forbidding children to eat certain types of foods or telling them that if they eat (candy or pasta or whatever their "fear" food is) they will get fat. The best way to teach good nutrition is of course modeling it by eating healthy without modeling restrictive eating. So, most nutritionists suggest that we all eat a wide variety of foods and that we not tell kids that foods are either "good" or "bad." To teach your child about nutrition, learn facts about nutrition and teach them rather than labeling food as good or bad.”

I do believe my toughest challenge in this assignment is going to be finding quality sources of evidence that people should raise their children as vegan or vegetarian just because they themselves are.  Most of what I’ve found up to this point has been very opinionated and fanatical.  Research is an ongoing project, though, and I really want to find more information.

Works Cited

"It Takes The Cake." Vegetarian Times June 1987: 13. Google Books. Google. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://books.google.com/books?id=BwkAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA13&dq=should+children+be+allowed+to+make+their+own+food+choices&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uKGWUN-eJ6GO2AW08IHoAw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=should%20children%20be%20allowed%20to%20make%20their%20own%20food%20choices&f=false>.

Ross, Carolyn C., MD. "Eating Disorders And Children." Basil & Spice 25 Mar. 2010: n. pag. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 4 Nov. 2012.

Stanfield, Peggy, and Y. H. Hui. Nutrition and Diet Therapy: Self-instructional Approaches. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2010. Print.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Vegetables

The thing that stands out to me the most in this photo is the pile of colorful vegetables on the counter.  It’s a nice contrast with the stark white of the tile, and the bright red cabinet beneath it.  This photo is most certainly staged, there are too many veggies there to fit in the little tiny pot, so I really don’t believe this little girl was hanging out getting ready to help her mom cook dinner.

The photo is taken at eye level of the child, so it looks to me to really want to paint the picture of being kid friendly, and wanting children to relate to the site I took this photo from.  It’s a website about vegetarian living, with recipes and a forum where people can ask questions.  This photo was from an article on the site that answered questions a woman had about her child who is a vegetarian while she and her husband are not.

This picture really says to me “C’mon kids, being vegetarian is fun!  Let’s play with all these colorful things!”  And while I appreciate that sentiment, it gives a really small representation of all of the things I think kids find fun to eat.

I think all groups want to paint a certain picture of themselves, and people that are adamant about being vegetarian or vegan, and are really adamant that their children are the same are going to work hard to put themselves out there as “the only way to be”.  This photo is a good representation of that, this child looks happy and ready to dig into those vegetables.  I think a candid shot of children helping their parents prepare vegetables would have been a better choice.  Rather, I think I would have felt better about how it was presented in the article, if it had been a candid shot.

N.d. Photograph. Savvy Vegetarian. 12 July 2012. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. <http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/blog/advice/8-yr-old-goes-vegetarian-mom-concerned-about-calories>.

The Research Question

Should children be forced to be vegetarian or vegan just because their parents are? Depending on how much research I’m actually able to find on the subject I may broaden it more to “should parents force their food choices on their kids”  which is kind of the same, but has a lot of other different aspects.  Currently I really feel kids shouldn’t have food forced on them.  I actually don’t even like the labels vegetarian and vegan, they produce a lot of negative connotations for a lot of people.  I have chosen to stop eating meat, and the other kinds of animal protein I take in are extremely limited.  This is fairly recent for me.  I made this choice earlier this year, and I chose not to enforce it in my house.  It was my choice, not a group decision.

That’s how I feel about this issue in general.  Kids should be allowed to grow up trying all kinds of foods.  Encouraged to try the entire spectrum, and allowed to make the choice to eat animal products, or not, when they’re old enough to make such an important decision.  I really think a lot of people are going to have a problem with this because it’s common to just have your children do as you do, and most people don’t want to have to make separate meals for different people in the family.  Another side of it is that people probably think they’re teaching their children to make the right choices by just raising them as vegan/vegetarian.

I would really like to find out if there have been any studies done involving these kinds of forced food choices and obesity later in life, or eating disorders down the road.  I’d like to find out if this might lead to the propensity for food hoarding or hiding because these kids have felt deprived of something.  Nutrition is my educational focus, so I’d really like to learn more about how this might affect children as they grow.  I’d like to find out if parents who raise their children as herbivores also give them all the vitamins/supplements that are recommended because unless you grow and test the vegetables yourself you really don’t know how long they’ve been out of the ground and what their nutritional value actually is.

Introductions

Welcome!  My name is Jennie, I’m 37 years old, and the mother of 4 girls.  They range in age from 3 to 12.  My family and I run a small alpaca ranch.  In addition to 18 alpacas, we’ve also got 4 dogs, a cat and a small flock of hens.  I am also a college student, back in the classroom for the first time in twenty years.  I am on my way to studying nutritional science, and becoming a registered dietitian.  My hobbies are vast and varied. I knit obsessively.  I love yarn, and I love pretty much every activity that has to do with yarn.  I adore books, and the invention of the e-reader was the best thing since sliced bread, in my opinion.  I am also a pretty avid gamer.  I’ve been playing World of Warcraft since the summer of 2005, and don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.