Teens Who Eat Less Meat No Healthier Than Others

Reuters via Yahoo! News ^ | Tue Sep 10, 5:26 PM ET

[Conagher]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite their healthy diets, vegetarian youth in Sweden and Norway do not practice other healthy lifestyle behaviors such as exercising more or using alcohol or tobacco less frequently than do their peers, according to recent study findings.

"Contrary to findings from other studies, adherence to a low-meat diet may not correlate with other health promotion practices among adolescents in Sweden and Norway," write lead study author Dr. Christel L. Larsson of Umea University in Sweden and her colleagues.

This finding is based on a survey of 2,041 Swedish and Norwegian 15- to 16-year-old students, 149 of whom said they were low-meat consumers--a category that included vegetarians. Nearly three-quarters of the low-meat eaters were female.

Altogether, the low-meat eaters did not differ from their omnivore, or meat and vegetable eating, peers in their weight, body mass index or their opinion about their weight, Larsson and her colleagues report in the August issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"This may indicate that concern about weight is not a major reason among adolescents for becoming low-meat consumers," the authors write.

Young women also did not seem to choose the low-meat diet for health-related reasons. In fact, being healthy seemed to be more important for the omnivores, who tended to be healthier than the low-meat eaters, study findings indicate.

Female low-meat eaters reported being sick more often than did their peers, while male low-meat eaters reported being tired and having headaches more often than their peers. Both the male and female low-meat eaters reported being depressed more often than the omnivores.

Low-meat eaters may be less healthy because their health was poorer initially, leading them to choose a vegetarian lifestyle for health reasons, or they may choose a low-meat diet for ethical reasons rather than health concerns, so they "do not have the same interest in practicing a healthy lifestyle as do more health-oriented vegetarians," the researchers speculate.

The researchers also found no difference in exercise habits, alcohol use or smoking practices between the low-meat eaters and the omnivores.

SOURCE: Journal of Adolescent Health 2002;31:190-198.

[Ditter]

I had an otherwise bright young college girl tell me that the reason she didn't eat beef was to save the rain forest. ????????????

[Conagher]

Yeah, they always put the stockyards in Kansas smack-dab in the middle of the rainforests!

Poor girl probably thinks milk comes from the store.

[lds23]

My guess is most people are more "looks-conscious" than "health-conscious".

[Sgt_Schultze]

I think that tube steak Monica preferred had a porking effect.

[PLK]

I had an otherwise bright young college girl tell me that the reason she didn't eat beef was to save the rain forest

They are reiterating the belief by some that the beef suppliers of many fast food chains in the U.S. are from South and Central America because it is cheaper. Because there is a market for beef in these areas, poor people slash and burn the rain forest in order to create pasture and grazing for cattle. I don't know if this is factual or not, but I have heard this.

[brat]

I've observed vegetarians of assorted stripes since the '60's. They are sick far more often than the rest of us but they can lay around and talk about how much energy they have all day long! LOL

[tubebender]

Can I have your permission to print this and have it laminated so I can show it to my wife from time to time ???

[TransOxus]

No surprise that vegetarians have poor health- get sick more and are frequently tired. Have observed those silly vegans complaining of the same symptoms. Meat is concentrated energy fuel. Meat eating atheletes do better. So do dominant civilizations or conquering hordes who eat flesh. There have been studies done by individuals eating only meat and they have stayed perfectly healthy. Eskimos do it.

[hispanarepublicana]

Homer Simpson says, "If God didn't want us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?"

[TransOxus]

More likely Monica was swallowing air causing her to balloon up. Slick is pretty underinflated in the department according to victims.

[Oztrich Boy]

- Despite their healthy diets, vegetarian youth

One unwarranted assumption in the first 5 words

[Conagher]

If it were mine to give, I'd give it. However, I doubt Reuters or Yahoo! will care.

[thegreatbeast]

- Despite their healthy diets, vegetarian youth

One unwarranted assumption in the first 5 words

Nice work, man. Right to the point.
One of the craziest bastards I ever met was a middle-aged vegetarian I found myself working for. I saw him nearly kill himself on a seven day fast. What a nutjob!

[driftless]

Don Imus's wife, Deirdre Coleman-Imus, has put him on a veggie diet since they've been married which must go back about eight to ten years. For the last four years Imus has done nothing but complain about his lack of good health (compounded by being thrown from a horse two years ago). I'll bet he's dying (no pun intended) to eat a good steak.

[driftless]

Bill Walton is a perfect example of a great athlete who ruined his career by being a vegetarian. He was constantly breaking bones because he was a vegan and refused to drink milk. An osteopath (not sure, might have been a chiropractor) looked at his bone structure one time and was convinced Walton suffered from osteoporosis.

[SWake]

Yeah, a previous girlfriend told me she didn't eat at McDonalds because their primary meat suppliers were slash and burn ranchers in South America. She pretty much quit talking to me when I asked whether we should ban the importation of meat from these guys and let the Native Americans go back to starving because we cut off their only source of employment in the region.

I never had time to ask her how long it takes the jungle to recover from a temporary encroachment.