This is apparently a real issue even in the USA, not sure where the ideas came from but I have a direct experience.

While at a funeral for an older man at a church I attended, my wife and I met a younger lady that was our age and she was very talkative and wanted to go out and have lunch with us. She stated that her husband (who worked at a large tech hosting company) had a "computer job" (in reference to me) as well. We went out eat, I met her husband, all seemed normal. We were both newly married, and my wife and her both ended up pregnant just months apart. So it was feeling like this was going to be one of those "life long" friendships since we seemed to have so much in common... and then...

My wife and her both gave birth to healthy children though things quickly started to change in our friendships. I consider myself a christian fundamentalist and my wife and I started to think it was strange that our new friend seemed to be way more opinionated and strict with how she was going to raise her daughter. This was realized when we offered to help babysit since she was going to try to go back to her teacher's aid job.

It was the scheduling... she had everything scheduled for this 5 month old baby. We were to every 2 hours feed her x number of ounces of freshly pumped breast milk. Problem is, the kid sucked down the entire day's worth in just two feedings. On top of that, we were to write down how long the naps were (which also were "required" to happen every 2 hours or so) and when bowel movements happened and what they looked like. Then there was the smell. The kid was just plain filthy, the mom had already bragged about how they don't really do baths any more since its "bad" for the skin. The extra clothes she brought were nasty too. So baby got a bath and we washed the extra clothes. The mom returns 8 or so hour later. We informed her of how the kid sucked down the milk and acted like she was staving, but mom was disappointed in that we didn't follow the schedule. After all, if we followed the schedule, we would not have ran out of milk...

Something didn't seem right, but we were naive.

Then a few months later, while over at their house for dinner, they informed us that they had all gone vegan. So there was no meat or cheese to eat and they had taken their (now 8 month old) daughter off of milk as well. To eat, we were given some thin vegetable soup with some mashed cauliflower on the side. The daughter got a small handful of raw diced squash and some beans which she gulped down practically whole in a matter of minutes.

The irony is both parents were quite over weight (nearing 300lbs). The daughter was strictly forced vegan but they were not. Mom still got her Dr.Pepper while baby got water and squash. They at one time asked us to baby sit at 9pm so they could have a "parent's night out" which was explained as they were going to go get doughnuts followed by margaritas at a mexican restaurant. Not sure how you can even mix those two... Being christian fundamentalists, we declined since we weren't going to help someone get drunk and drive themselves home.

One of the last times we met, they had informed us CPS had been visiting them. Apparently their daughter was running a fever at night so they took her to the ER. The nurse of course noticed the under-height and underweight child and told the parents they should try upping the amount of milk she gets every day. The mom of course squawked back that they're "vegan". And I guess the rest is history.

I've never quite figured out where she got her weird ideas from. She had other friends and they all seemed to support each other's ideas. She was not anti-vax either (though I am). She went on to have a son (which she circumcised), and as far as I know, raised the same. Even though she is "vegan" she still pushes 300lbs. After her CPS story, we stopped hanging out and blocked her on facebook.