A study of 2,041 Swedish and Norwegian 15 and 16 year olds found mixed results from the small number of such teens who were classified as “low meat eaters” including vegetarians.
The studies main finding was that the subgroup identified as consuming little or no meat were not healthier than the teens in the group who were not “low meat eaters.” Such teens were just as likely to smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs as their meat consuming peers. Their was also no statistically significant difference in their weight, body mass index or opinion about their weight.
Ironically, health issues were actually more important to the omnivorous teens than to the vegetarian and near-vegetarian subgroup. The “low meat eating” subgroup also reported being depressed more frequently than did the omnivorous teens.
The researchers had a number of speculations about the differences, but the bottom line is that they’re studying so few vegetarians and near-vegetarians that the best the researchers could offer is speculation. Most such studies end up like this, surveying a large group of individuals and then subsequently producing studies on the small number of vegetarians. It would be interesting to see a large scale study of vegetarian teens.
Source:
Teens who eat less meat no healthier than others. Reuters, September 10, 2002.