Bites of passage: what you need to know when your teen goes vegetarian - includes list of resources

Vegetarian Times, Nov, 1997 by Lee Reilly

The differences between vegetarians motivated by ethical concerns and those obsessed with thinness are usually discernible, Sherman maintains. Anorectic girls concentrate on body image and spot reduction; their thoughts are inflexibly focused on specific weight-reducing tasks. "However, choosing vegetarianism as an ideal and statement to the world is a different kind of reasoning," Sherman says. That, he says, usually involves larger concepts such as animal rights and ecology.

Coughlin, who co-hosts America Online's (AOL) teen vegetarian chat group, offers this test to determine a teen's motivation: "Just ask your daughter why she's a vegetarian. If she starts talking about fat grams, I'd be worried. If she starts talking about animals, blood, guts and cruelty, you're probably all right." If doubts persist and weight loss continues, however, parents should seek the help of a professional who specializes in eating disorders.

HITTING HOME

Health concerns aside, a teen's decision to become a vegetarian affects the whole family--both emotionally and functionally. It takes additional work on the part of the designated family cook--usually the mother--to extend her cooking repertoire. And it takes an attitude adjustment on the part of other family members who may regard a vegetarian diet as unappealing. Lauren Lebrecque pre-empted this conflict by cooking her own meals--which is the approach most experts recommend. "If you're old enough to make this decision, you're old enough to contribute to the family," says Coughlin, whose three school-age vegetarian children all help out in the kitchen.

Other conflicts are more emotional. Having achieved a moral point of view, some teens can't resist commenting on everyone else's morals. Lauren's favorite bumper sticker reads "Meat is Murder," and teens often talk about "educating" others, a gentle term for what can be a rather bloody discussion. After one such discussion, Carol Ricci, 50, an office manager in Great Kills, N.Y., told her daughter Cara, who was 16 at the time, "We tolerate what you're eating and you should be tolerant with us."

Meanwhile, siblings often rebel. "A little brother will say, `You're ruining it for us, now we can't go to McDonald's,'" Carol Coughlin reports. Visiting relatives often announce that a teen's new vegetarian diet is "just a passing phase"--a comment that may be well-meaning, but discount the teen-ager's feelings, motivations and desires to be an independent thinker.

Mothers, in turn, sometimes experience a mild sense of loss. "It was frustrating," Teresa says of those first couple of months when she was trying to understand her daughter's feelings and motivations and master a new way of thinking about food and nutrition. "You're used to caring for the family and giving them what they need. You begin to feel panicky that they won't eat. It's almost like a baby who won't take the milk." That panicky feeling, that subtle sense of hurt, is understandable, says author Judy Krizmanic. "Nourishment is so personal," she says. "Parents have been feeding their kids all along--it's one of their jobs--and then, suddenly, the child turns the tables and changes the way she eats, as if to say, `You've been doing it wrong.' That's confusing."