[size=medium][font=Arial]Why Vegetarian Children Will Rule the World [/font][/size] by Annie Hartnett I was sitting in a coffee shop when I overheard a conversation between two children and their babysitter. The babysitter suggested they order turkey wraps for lunch, and the younger boy violently shook his head. "Did you know what's in turkey?" he asked. "No..." the babysitter answered cautiously. "A real live chicken," he said, emphasizing each syllable for effect. The boy obviously needs a lesson in bird species, but his compassionate intention is a sign that he could grow up to be a genius. According to a report in The British Medical Journal, children with higher IQs are more likely to grow up to be vegetarians. The study also found that vegetarians are more likely to be female, more likely to have a college degree, and more likely to come from a higher income family. But even after those factors were adjusted, a child with a higher IQ is 20 percent more likely to be vegetarian as an adult. In some not-so-great news, it was found that vegans had a lower average IQ than vegetarians (but still higher than omnivores). The study tested the IQ of a group of 8,000 10-year-old children, and then their diets were assessed 20 years later, when the subjects were 30 years old. But I'd be curious to know at what age these smarties became vegetarians, and what prompted them to make the change. That's Why We Don't Eat Animals by Ruby Roth, is a picture book targeted at children age 4 to 10. It addresses factory farming and environmental problems associated with eating meat. While this book is an amazing resource for a child, reading it in an elementary school classroom could also cause enormous tension between parents and teachers. Middle school art teacher Dave Warwak was fired in 2007 for preaching veganism. College students are the most rapidly growing group of vegetarians and vegans. The statistics vary, but Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals, estimates that 18 percent of U.S. college students are vegetarian. It is generally estimated that 3 percent of the American population is vegetarian. No one is too young or too old to go vegetarian. I met an elderly woman on the subway who was clutching a library copy of Eating Animals. She told me that she would not be eating meat again in her lifetime, and that she believed the hard boiled egg she had eaten that morning would be her last. If your young child decides to go vegetarian, consider it a sign that they are headed for great things. What do Albert Einstein, J.D. Salinger, Emily Dickinson, Vincent Van Gogh, and Susan B. Anthony have in common? You got it: Great minds think vegetarian.