Dear Rebecca:I think I understand your parent's concerns. For many adolescent girls a vegetarian diet becomes a diet close to an eating disorder. It's not just that eating as a vegetarian is good or bad, but simply to the parents this means "controlling the family" in an unhealthy way.
Your parents might think that as you start to restrict your calories you gradually glide over to vomiting your food, and excessive exercise. I'm not suggesting that this is your intention, or that this will happen to you. I am a very strict vegetarian (but not vegan) and for me it has been wonderful. But my physiology is very different from yours. I am a 54 year old middle aged male. It is highly unlikely that I would ever suffer from any kind of eating disorder. But young women in your age group are prone to viewing magazines of other
young women who are extremely thin as a goal to popularity and peer acceptance. I cannot imagine that happening to me.
I think there are ways that you could convince your parents that your choice to become a vegetarian is a good one and that you won't permit it to turn into an eating disorder. Most vegetarians start to lose weight after they switch. This will become the real "testing point" for you in your relationship with your
family on this issue. I predict that there will be some arguments and that you will end up in your room angry with them. I think that that is a bad way to handle it, since they obviously love you and want you not to get seriously ill. (I have a daughter also who is now 26 years old, so I understand these things from the other point of view.)
You will need to bring good scientific evidence "to the table." When they see you losing weight they will be alarmed. You need to include certain fatty items like cheeses (or if you are vegan) nuts and other high-fat vegetarian foods to keep up a reasonable weight. Also, you need to take some multi-vitamins that have Vit B-12 in them, because most vegie food has none.
I think you can do it, but it will take some real effort on your part as well as your parents. If successful, you can use this entire process as a way to obtain more and better communication with your entire family. But try to remember to "stay scientific" whenever you talk about this. Become an expert on food and prove it to your parents.
Read a lot of books on good nutrition. Don't necessarily view sugar as "poison." It's not. Remember that young women need a certain basic amount of fat in their diet in order to keep up their menstruation and not risk the ability to have children. I have known women who exercised very vigorously during their younger years and did not eat properly. They cannot have any children now due to their poor dietary choices then.
If you want to lose weight, you should lose no more than about a pound a week. Remember, that's 52 lbs a year! So at some point you need to stabilize.
You need to try to plan in advance of when that point of stability will occur.
TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR or make an appointment with a nutritionist! Remember what you say to your doctor is secret from your parents if you want it to be.
Good luck,
(Dr.) Michael M. Rosenblatt
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