❓Can eating vegetarian cause developmental delays or stunted growth in kids?

Authoritative nutrition and pediatric bodies in the US, UK, Canada, and elsewhere all officially hold that a well-planned vegetarian diet (including vegan) is suitable for children and teens at every stage of development, and doesn't inherently cause developmental delays. Height and growth mainly depend on genetics and whether you're hitting targets for total calories, protein, zinc, vitamin D, and calcium — not the single variable of whether meat is eaten. In reality, plenty of vegetarian families around the world raise kids with completely normal development. Growth problems usually come down to parents not executing "well-planned" properly — for example, filling a kid's stomach with too many leafy vegetables that crowd out staples and protein sources, or chronically neglecting B12 and vitamin D supplementation. That's a feeding-approach problem, and the same kind of oversight in an omnivorous family would produce similar results. Getting a child's growth regularly tracked on a growth curve is a much more accurate way to judge whether development is normal than vaguely worrying about "what vegetarian eating might do."