Truth is not the issue here. It's just a general attitude that you don't take kids seriously until their late teens at the earliest. A perception that this sort of thing should be left alone until a person is over 18. A notion that such life-changing therapies should only be decided upon by the patient themselves and as such must wait until the patient is legally old enough to give informed consent. Perfectly understandable, whether one agrees with it or not.

To be fair, my 11-year-old granddaughter, if asked, will identify as 'hungry' -which she is, constantly.