CDC’s Suspicious Survey

Contrary to what dozens of media stories have suggested recently, there isn’t much news about childhood vegetarianism based on the Centers for Disease Control study on the foods American children are consuming. Countless articles have appeared on the topic, nearly all of them alleging that the CDC found that one in 200 American children, or 367,000 kids, are vegetarian. But earlier surveys found between two and six percent of American youth are forgoing meat in their diet, which equates to more than a million eight-to-18-year-olds.

Which survey do we believe? This isn’t just a matter of margin of error. For anyone who takes the time to read the actual wording of the surveys, it’s clear we’re talking apples and oranges, or perhaps, apples and hamburgers.

The earlier surveys actually asked about what kids are eating, while the CDC survey barely touches on it. As some experts point out, including Jack Norris, RD, the CDC survey is in no way a reliable estimate of how many kids are vegetarian.

Designed to estimate the number of Americans who use complementary or alternative medicine, the CDC only asked two questions about vegetarianism—whether or not the child had followed a “special diet” for health reasons (definitions of “special diets” included vegetarian, macrobiotic, Atkins, Ornish, Zone, and South Beach), and if the child had tried to “treat a specific health problem or condition other than weight control or weight loss” by adhering to any of those diets.

In other words, a large number of vegetarian kids would never be counted in such a survey because they’re not likely abstaining from meat-eating for health or medical reasons. While there are many health benefits associated with being vegetarian, it certainly isn’t the only reason people opt to leave animals off their plates. Many kids choose vegetarianism for a whole host of other reasons such as animal welfare, environmental, spiritual, and social. The largest study of vegetarian teens ever published, which surveyed nearly 5,000 adolescents from 31 Minnesota public middle schools and high schools, found that the number-one reason given for consuming a vegetarian diet was not wanting to kill animals.

While it certainly would be more helpful to have more accurate and thorough surveys, there’s an enormous amount of anecdotal evidence that a vegetarian lifestyle is catching on, and not just with kids. Whether it’s social icons such as Oprah and Ellen touting the benefits of a plant-based diet, food magazines like Gourmet adding monthly vegetarian columns, the exploding popularity of meat alternatives, or the ever-growing number of blogs, websites, and online forums dedicated to the lifestyle, it’s clear that society’s trajectory is toward more meat-free eating.

If one in 200 American children are choosing vegetarian diets for health or medical reasons, surely there must be many more who choose plant-based eating for any of the other myriad reasons kids embrace such a lifestyle. We don’t know how many American children may be vegetarian, but we can say that the recent stories asserting the one in 200 number should be taken with a healthy dose of salt, and, perhaps, a veggie burger, too.

Guest writer Paul Shapiro is the senior director of The Humane Society of the United States’ factory-farming campaign.