They were the weediest, sickliest, pasty-skinned little kids you ever saw. I don't remember their intellectual capabilities -- but they caught every bug going around the school, never played on the playground, pretty pathetic.
The dad of one of the other kids in carpool was a pediatrician and a close friend of my parents, and I remember them discussing in my hearing what they could do about it, but not whether they were going to try what's now called an "intervention" or report the parents to somebody. Never heard what came of it, all of that was way above my pay grade.
But the pediatrician said that vitamin supplements and stuff like that wouldn't do the trick, that there were nutrients that growing kids needed that you could only get from milk, meat, fish and eggs. He said once you were finished growing, you could abuse your body a whole lot more and get away with it.
Yep, the pediatrician is absoultely right.
Calcium and vitamin D are not options in a growing body. Vitamin D is created by the skin when exposed to sunlight... its also supplimentally added to milk in the industrialized world, it helps your body absorb and process calcium (found in dairy) into bone.
This child has rickets because of lack of calcium and vitamin d. This is insufferable. There are children that grow up healthy and happy in many cultures that do not eat meat.. but you cannot deny children dairy and meat and expect them to not have horrible problems most likely for life. These parents are nut jobs to have forced this on theri child.
What I see out here in the 'burbs is Mom became a "trendy" vegetarian and the kids follows suit to be like Mom. But kid only really eats high sugar crap diet. Kid gets fat.