• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Clinically, the doctor will most likely want you to provide a general diet history and will take your child’s height and weight and plot it into a general growth chart. If you’re working with a new doctor and have information on your child’s height and weight from other medical visits in previous years or even from a home scale, bring that along, too. Based on symptoms, the doctor may order blood tests to measure any of the nutritional deficiencies mentioned in this chapter. When the blood test results come back in about 2 or 3 days, the physician will be able to direct you in what can be done to correct course.

Enlisting the help of a dietician may be helpful if your child has a particularly stubborn diet-related health issue. Find a dietician in your area by logging on to www.eatright.org and clicking on “Find a Nutrition Professional.”

Other Means of Support

Here are some other daily lifestyle choices you can make to further support your child’s optimal health:

◆ Be sure she gets enough sleep.

◆ Include regular opportunities for exercise in her day.

◆ Provide a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement and a DHA supplement.

◆ Teach her stress management through activities like kids’ yoga, family meal times, parent-child outings, spending time in nature, and connecting to your chosen faith community.

◆ Promote learning (rather than grades) in school.

◆ Don’t overschedule. Let your child be a kid!

When It’s Time to Consider Other Options

You may need to consider that a 100 percent vegan diet may not be right for your child at the present time if …

◆ Your child has significant food allergies or sensitivities to foods that make up a large portion of the vegan diet such as soy, beans, nuts, or gluten.

◆ Your child has been diagnosed with an eating disorder such as anorexia and is advised by her doctor to expand her food choices.

◆ After multiple efforts on your part to expand her dietary choices, your child still limits her diet to a small number of foods due to extreme picky eating and will eat few fruits and vegetables.

◆ Your child has fallen off her growth curve, and your attempts to alter her vegan diet to increase calorie, fat, and food intake hasn’t helped her weight gain to resume to a normal level.

◆ She’s very resistant to the idea of eating 100 percent vegan and has expressed ongoing and adamant opposition to being labeled vegan by her friends.

If a child has a nutritional deficiency or other ongoing complication related to her diet, as her parents, you must set aside black-and-white, purist ideals. When health and weight issues become paramount, the most important thing is that the child is fed. You need not feel guilty for not meeting your goals perfectly for your child’s diet. No matter what other foods must be included, you can still find ways to incorporate many healthy plant-based foods into her diet.

It’s important to meet your child where she is today, and you can revisit the issue of veganism at a later time.

The Least You Need to Know

◆ Even if nutrient deficits aren’t extreme, many children aren’t getting optimal nutrition, vegan or otherwise. Many of the calories children consume today are empty, devoid of whole-food nutrients.

◆ A daily multivitamin and mineral supplement plus a DHA supplement are simple ways to protect against nutritional deficiencies.

◆ It’s important to stay up to date on your child’s changing nutrition needs as they grow because many vitamin, mineral, and macro-nutrient recommendations change significantly with each stage.

◆ Work closely and honestly with a health-care provider when a nutritional deficiency or other health issue in your child is suspected.

Part 3

Stocking the Vegan Kitchen

A vegan kitchen—and a kid-friendly one at that!—is easy to set up once you get to know some essential components such as healthful, kid-friendly pantry staples; meat, egg, and dairy substitutes; and made-for-kids kitchen tools. A few fun, easy, and