Your teenaged daughter has just announced that she wants to become a vegetarian. You're full of doubts about whether she can maintain a healthy diet without eating any meat.

Not only can a vegetarian diet be healthy for people of all ages, a recent report in Nutrition Reviews states that vegetarianism is ideal for combating obesity. In fact, vegetarians have, on average, a body weight as much as 20 percent lower than those who eat meat!

The important consideration with a vegetarian diet - as for all diets - is to eat a variety of foods. Vegetarian diets should include plenty of fruits and vegetables (especially leafy greens), whole grain products, seeds, nuts and legumes. Ideally dairy products and eggs should be eaten. Special attention should be paid to good sources of protein, such as peanut butter, tofu, soymilk, and low fat cheese and milk products. There is no need to plan special combinations of foods to get complete proteins as long as a good amount of varying types of plant proteins are eaten throughout the day.