[Sociocultural aspects of child nutrition--food faddism].

Today pediatricians are confronted with an increasing number of unconventional feeding practices. Most frequently encountered are the various forms of vegetarian diets. These as well as numerous other unconventional foods may result in a failure to thrive when fed to children routinely. Since in general it is not possible to influence the families' eating practices, physicians should know the risks of unconventional diets, such as hypoproteinemia, calcium deficiency and deficiencies of vitamin B12 and vitamin D and the respective clinical symptoms. Predominantly young people decide to change their life-style, unconventional eating practices being part of it.