Should a parent be allowed to force their dietary restrictions on their child? 

Parents have always decided what their kids eat. It’s not as if kids are the ones going to the grocery store and deciding exactly what to cook for dinner every night! They are always at their parents’ mercy. If their parents think it’s totally okay to eat nothing but frozen dinners, they’re likely to carry that habit into adulthood unless they make some radical changes to their routine. It’s perfectly natural for a kid who was raised on healthy food to rebel against their parents’ upbringing once they have the opportunity to choose their own food. That’s how you get college freshmen eating 3 bowls of Lucky Charms at the dining hall every day. The best thing a parent can do is to give their children the skills to have a balanced diet. If a young person can balance healthy meals a day with occasional snacks and desserts, they are going to have better health outcomes than those who were taught that certain foods are nefarious and should never be eaten. 

A great deal of the population follows dietary restrictions based on their cultural beliefs, and those restrictions are usually pretty tame as far as «diets» go. Excluding shrimp, bacon, or all meat from your diet isn’t as extreme as non-cultural diets, like never eating bread or drinking 4 gallons of water per day. The mom in this story wants to let her daughter’s friend eat whatever she wants, even if it goes against her family’s beliefs.