Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about nutrition and how it aspects every part of our lives. I truly believe many of our chronic diseases (cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons, etc) are directly related to what we eat. I just finished a book called “Food and Behavior” by Barbara Reed Stitt and is correlates food not only to disease, but violent behavior. Many children I treat in my office are on medication for ADD, asthma, and allergies, and I can’t seem to remember any kids in my class having to leave to see the school nurse to take medication. In one part of her book, she discusses the biochemistry of crime and she found a lot of inmates have a vitamin B deficiency. Here are some signs of vitamin B deficiency that she states,” fears, fatigue, depression, paranoia, confusion, hostility, rage, anxiety.” Look at our diet–many kids are taken to fast food restaurants on a regular basis. Many kids are fed “from a box” everyday, meaning they eat mac and cheese, hamburger helper, cookies, crackers, chips, etc. These items are abundant in carbs and deficient in vitamins.
I’d like to close with a paragraph from Stitt’s book that I feel really captures the problems going on. “Nutrition begins at home. Parents are responsible for more than what their kids will have for supper; the food behavior habits they instill almost from the moment of birth will influence how the child thinks about food for the rest of his or her life. If the child is allowed or even encouraged by the example of his or her parents to indulge in processed foods, junk foods, refined sugar, cola or coffee, cigarettes or alcohol, then that child will probably continue those habits after leaving home, and probably join the swelling ranks of the victims of heart disease, diabetes, hypoglycemia, cancer, psychosis, and schizophrenia which clog our nation’s hospitals and prisons. If, on the other hand, the child is taught to value and enjoy whole, fresh fruits and vegetables and learns to associate what he or she eats to how he or she feels, then that child will almost certainly grow to be a happy, healthy, full-functioning adult. This is not to say your kids will never have any problems in life; they will, however have the biological equipment necessary to deal with problems in healthy and constructive ways.”
Which path will you choose for your kids?
For more help or information, give Dr. Jessica a call at 907-1700
