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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Study Shows Teen Vegetarians Healthier than Meat Eaters |
Current rating: 0 |
by evolved
(No verified email address) |
13 May 2002
Modified: 14 May 2002 |
Animals are suffering hardcore, STOP eating animals! Eat human food instead.
http://www.factoryfarming.com |
— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Grandma may be upset that her teen-age son will not eat her chicken casserole, but U.S. researchers say vegetarian teen-agers have a healthier diet than their meat-eating counterparts.
What many parents may fear is youthful rebellion or even an unhealthy way of keeping off weight is actually a good way to get the recommended vitamins and minerals -- and avoid fatty junk food in the process, a team at the University of Minnesota found.
"It seems that rather than viewing adolescent vegetarianism as a difficult phase or fad, the dietary pattern could be viewed as a healthy alternative to the traditional American meat-based diet," epidemiologist Cheryl Perry
and colleagues wrote in Sunday's issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine.
They studied more than 4,500 teen-agers, with an average age of about 15, from 31 middle schools and high schools in Minnesota. Of them, about 262, or nearly 6 percent, said they were vegetarian.
They compared the diets of these boys and girls to the Healthy People 2010 recommendations, which are dietary targets issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
They include goals of getting less than 30 percent of one's daily calories from fat and less than 10 percent from saturated fat, eating more than two servings of fruit and three servings of vegetables daily.
"Overall, adolescent vegetarians were significantly more likely to meet the dietary recommendations of Healthy People 2010," Perry's group wrote.
"Vegetarian adolescents were more than twice as likely to eat less than 30 percent of their calories from fat and nearly three times more likely to eat less than 10 percent of their calories from saturated fat," they added.
"They were also 1.4 to two times more likely to eat two or more servings of fruit, three or more servings of vegetables ... and five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily."
Both the vegetarians and the meat-eaters failed to get enough calcium every day, the researchers found, but the vegetarians got significantly more iron, vitamin A, folate and fiber.
They also drank more diet soda and caffeine, which the researchers said reflected the desire of most of the teen-agers to keep weight off.
"Vegetarian adolescents, similar to their adult counterparts, have dietary patterns that, if maintained, could significantly lower their risk of the leading causes of death as adults," the researchers said.
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
See also:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20020512_139.html
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correlation is not cause |
by mr. critical
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
14 May 2002
|
Right, so the study shows that vegetarians have a healthier diet. But it does not show that becoming a vegetarian will make your diet healthier, since the study subjects' vegetarianism and healthy diet may share an unrelated cause. The study has some data that might indicate such an unrelated cause: for instance, the vegetarians in the study were more likely to drink diet soda and caffiene.
There are two issues here: the well-being of animals and the well-being of humans on various diets. The argument that vegetarianism protects animals from suffering does not require evidence that vegetarianism makes humans nutritionally healthier. The argument that vegetarianism is nutritionally healthier for humans does not require evidence that it causes less suffering for animals, and is a more difficult argument to make because various kinds of meat, like fish, are considered very healthy by nutritionists.
By the same token, it can be argued (however successfully) that certain kinds of farming (obviously not factory farming) actually result in less suffering for animals than living in the wild, since these styles of farming protect animals from starvation and predators and reduce infant mortality without otherwise reducing the quality of life of the animals. Of course this kind of argument depends on the idea that you can "humanely" slaughter an animal, which I think is the most difficult argument to make.
There's another important argument for vegetarianism, and that's that it's cheaper (in terms of cost, not price). But I'm preaching to the choir. |
