Feeding Kids Meat Is Child Abuse, Says PETA

For Immediate Release:
16 September 2002


Contact:
Dawn Carr – 020 7357 9229, ext. 224



Glasgow — Spurred by new evidence that some children are so fat their parents are likely to outlive them, PETA is erecting a billboard in Glasgow that announces: ‘Feeding kids meat is child abuse. Fight the fat. GoVeg.co.uk.’ Glasgow was chosen for the billboard’s debut because, according to Men’s Fitness magazine, it has the highest obesity rate of any city in the UK.


The UK’s obesity rate is rising faster than that of its Western European neighbours, and kids in the UK are among the heftiest in the world. British children are getting fatter faster than at any time in history, and almost one in three are now overweight. In fact, children as young as 3 have shown signs of arterial clogging!


Meat, dairy products and eggs-all of which are packed with cholesterol and saturated fat-are major culprits in the obesity epidemic, which contributes to the UK’s top killers: heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and cancer. Meat-eaters are four times as likely to be obese as vegetarians and are 10 times more likely to suffer from heart disease. In a study published in the British Medical Journal, researchers found that vegan men weighed, on average, 5.9 kg less and vegan women 4.7 kg less than their meat-eating counterparts. The study concludes, ‘These data suggest that a meat-free diet is associated with a low prevalence of obesity.’


Eating meat also means killing animals-850 million land animals and countless fish are killed for their flesh every year in the UK. Many are raised on filthy, crowded factory farms, rarely if ever smelling fresh air or feeling the sun on their backs until the day they are sent off to slaughter.


‘Stuffing children full of burgers and bangers not only makes them fat and lethargic but may set them up for a host of health problems including heart disease, cancer and diabetes’, says PETA’s Dawn Carr. ‘The little darlings may scream out for cheesy pizza and KFC, but they’ll be screaming in earnest when they’re too fat to tie their own shoelaces. The best thing that parents can do to help keep their kids trim and healthy is to start feeding them a vegan diet.’


For more information, please visit www.PETAUK.org.