A new study has found that children raised on a vegan diet are "shorter and weaker".
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was designed to see how different diets affect the growth, body composition, cardiovascular risk, and micronutrient status of children.
Researchers monitored 187 healthy children in Poland, all aged between five and 10. This included 52 children who followed a vegan diet, the Daily Mail reports.
Conducted by the University College London's Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, the study concluded that vegan children should be given vitamin B12 and vitamin D supplements due to the absence of animal products in their diets.
If vegan children take these supplements, they will be less at risk of developing long-term health conditions as a consequence of their plant-only diets. The study found that those on plant-based diets had a 4-6% lower bone mineral content and are more likely to develop osteoporosis in later life.
Children raised on a plant-based diet are on average 1.18 inches shorter, according to the study's findings.
The lead author of the study Professor Jonathan Wells said people are "increasingly being drawn to plant-based diets", something the researchers support as they are "recognized to be crucial for preventing climate breakdown."
The professor stated that it's important to understand how veganism affects a child's health: "Until now research into the health impact of these diets on children has been largely limited to assessments of height and weight and conducted only in vegetarian children.
"Our study provides a substantial insight into the health outcomes in children following vegetarian and vegan diets."
Professor Mary Fewtrell said of the impact of veganism on children: "We found that vegan children had lower bone mass even after accounting for their smaller body and bone size. This means they may enter adolescence, a phase when bone-specific nutrient needs are higher, with a bone deficit already established.
"If such deficits are caused by a diet that persists into adolescence, this might increase the risk of adverse bone outcomes later in life.
However, not everything the study revealed was bad news for vegan children, as it also found that 25% of subjects had lower levels of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol.
Co-author Dr. Małgorzata Desmond wrote that, generally speaking, vegan children have better cardiovascular health and had lower body fat.
It also found that vegetarian children have poorer cardiovascular health than vegan children, which has been linked to them eating larger amounts of processed and sugary food compared to vegan children.
The study's authors are ultimately hoping that it will help parents to meet their children's nutritional needs regardless of their dietary choices.
