[bildung]

"[I]ntermittent fasting diets may actually damage the pancreas and affect insulin function in normal healthy individuals, which could lead to diabetes and serious health issues." (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/20/fasting-diet...)

The National Council Against Health Fraud "strongly advises against the use of prolonged fasting for health purposes, and believes that requiring children to fast is a form of child abuse." https://www.ncahf.org/articles/e-i/fasting.html

[beagle3]

Your first link talks specifically of fasting every other day, and is about rats. That is completely irrelevant to 5 day fasting in humans, whereas [0] is.

Your second link is from 1995; A lot has happened since. Yes, children should probably not fast. Other than that, more recent data (as well as old, but ignored, data) show that water fasting is good for you. And Valter Lango's research (see [0], and google for more) shows that it's actually extremely beneficial in many cases, especially during chemotherapy.

[0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/five-day-fasting-die...