by Kathleen Keating

Ann is our charming, fun loving daughter who was born with Prader Willi Syndrome. Although she is 47 years old, because of her developmental disability, she is forever young at heart. However, she prefers to say she has ‘special needs’ rather than being thought of as disabled! She is fortunate that she is high functioning and can take care of herself in many areas - except food.

Ann is now a permanent resident in Canada and lives near us with a wonderful caregiver and her family. She attends a day care program five days a week with lots of activities she loves.

She takes piano lessons and participates in piano recitals and other favorite activities are word search puzzles, jig saw puzzles, and bowling with Special Olympics, computer games on her Apple computer, and collecting DVDs of her favorite movies and CDs of a wide variety of music.

Because of Prader-Willi Syndrome, the one area she still needs very special supervision is her diet. The mechanism that controls satiety, or the feeling of fullness, does not work properly in folks with PWS. They also have very low metabolism and some can gain weight if they eat more than 1000 calories a day.

It is very difficult for most of us to imagine how distressing it would be to always feel hungry and be allowed so little to eat. We might experience some feeling of physical or emotional hunger when on diet, or crave some sweets or favorite high calorie treats we can’t have ... but that feeling of deprivation is mild compared to the endless feeling of hunger PWS folks suffer all of the time, all of their life.

A vegan diet - including Souper Hero soups! is Ann’s favorite because she gets a larger volume of food for less calories. Because her condition is less severe than some, she may even feel satisfied for a short while after eating.

Ann was my first guide in learning about nutrition and the benefits of a vegan diet on our health as well as the health of the planet.