They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning. Dr Richardson Alex

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СКАЧАТЬ other dairy products are rich sources of easily absorbed calcium, but other sources include tofu, green vegetables (particularly broccoli, kale and spinach), canned salmon and sardines, shellfish, almonds, Brazil nuts, sesame seeds and dried beans as well as grains and dried fruits. Remember, too, that your child also needs both magnesium and vitamin D to get calcium into her bones.

      Magnesium

      Magnesium carries out hundreds of biological functions for you, and is absolutely essential for good health. It helps keep your bones and teeth strong, and your heart rhythms steady. It also helps you to make proteins, is important in energy metabolism (including blood-sugar control) and helps regulate muscle and nerve function, immune reactions and control of blood pressure.

      If your ADHD or ADD child suffers from light or restless sleep and daytime sleepiness, try adding calcium and magnesium-rich foods to his diet. These include: milk products, cocoa, sardines, green leafy vegetables, tofu, brown rice, whole grains and beans.

      See also: 10 Effective Ways to Help Your ADD/ADHD Child by Laura Stevens, and her excellent website with dietary tips at http://www.nlci.com/nutrition/.

      Magnesium powerfully affects ‘nervous excitability’, and deficiency states are characterized by tension, agitation and stress. Lack of magnesium is linked with many psychiatric conditions, including anxiety and panic disorders, Tourette’s syndrome (involving involuntary movements or speech utterances known as ‘tics’), autism and ADHD.³¹ There’s preliminary evidence of benefits from magnesium supplementation in ADHD children, although this still needs confirming in rigorous randomized controlled trials.³² Early signs of magnesium deficiency include loss of appetite, fatigue, weakness, nausea or vomiting, muscle contractions and cramps, numbness and tingling. Severe deficiencies can lead to seizures, personality changes and heart rhythm abnormalities.

      Unfortunately, magnesium deficiency in the diets of UK children is even more common than lack of calcium. As the national surveys show, average daily intakes of magnesium fall short of ‘reference nutrient intake’ levels in all except those under 6 years of age. In boys aged between 11 and 18 years, one in every four or five has a frankly deficient intake of magnesium; for girls of the same age, it is more than half of them.³³

      All green vegetables provide magnesium (it’s in the chlorophyll that gives plants their green colour), as do most nuts, seeds and grains. A wide range of different foods containing magnesium is needed, though, as no one food is a particularly rich source. Along with a lack of fruit and vegetables, this is where many children (and adults) go wrong, of course—but I hope you can see once again why it’s so important that you encourage your child to eat a wide variety of whole, fresh, unprocessed foods.

      Copper

      Copper, along with iron, helps form your red blood cells—so a lack of this mineral can actually be another possible cause of ‘iron-deficiency anaemia’. It’s also very important in keeping your bones, blood vessels, nerves and immune system healthy, as well as your skin. Copper deficiency has been implicated in thyroid abnormalities, cardiovascular disease, thrombosis, poor glucose tolerance, some immune system abnormalities and the formation of collagen (an elastic substance important in tissue health and healing). We’re told that copper deficiency in the UK is rare (mainly because our water is usually delivered in copper pipes), but some researchers in the field would strongly disagree. No official ‘dietary deficiency’ levels have even been established, but at least one-third, and in some age groups four-fifths, of UK children get less than the ‘reference nutrient intake’ of copper from their diets.³⁴

      Copper is found in green leafy vegetables, dried fruits (like prunes), beans, nuts and potatoes, but the amount in our vegetables has been declining owing to mineral depletion of our soils.³⁵ Other sources include kidney and liver, shellfish, yeast and cocoa (so there’s even a little in chocolate—but please don’t let that be your child’s main dietary source, will you?).

      Copper and zinc in the body must be very carefully balanced, because they compete for absorption, and in many other ways. (For this reason, zinc can play a key part in the treatment of Wilson’s disease—a rare genetic syndrome in which copper can’t be excreted, and the build-up can lead to progressive poisoning and death.) Many children with hyperactivity, attentional problems and poor impulse control seem to show an elevated copper-to-zinc ratio on biochemical testing. However, some children with similar symptoms have exactly the opposite pattern—raised zinc and low copper.

      If your child is fatigued, pale, has skin sores, oedema (fluid retention and swelling), slowed growth, hair loss, anorexia, diarrhoea or dermatitis, these could all be symptoms of insufficient copper (although all of them could have other causes). Infants fed almost exclusively on cows’ milk products without a source of copper can be at particular risk.

      Is the Government Listening? Are You?

      In January 2006, the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) issued a new report linking mental ill-health to changing diets. It said that poor-quality food can have an immediate effect upon someone’s behaviour and mental health—and that there can be lasting effects if the diet isn’t changed to a healthy one.

      One finding is that the rate of depression in the UK has not only increased, but the age of onset has decreased. The MHF went on to say that complementary health services which focus on diet and nutrition are showing promising results, but that they need more funding to conduct full-scale trials.

      They spoke of a clear link between the rate of depression and the sort of diet followed: those eating ‘convenience’ foods rather than freshly prepared ones. In other words—people eating junk food are more likely to suffer from depression. The lack of fish oils and micronutrients was highlighted.

      Changing Diets, Changing Minds, published by Sustain, an organization that campaigns for better food, warns that the British National Health Service’s bill for mental illness will keep rising unless the Government focuses on diet and the brain in its policies on education, farming and food.

      For the full report and others, visit www.mentalhealth.org.uk.

      Zinc

      Zinc is needed for more than 200 different biochemical reactions in the body and brain. Your child needs it for normal growth, sexual development, a working immune system and brain and healthy skin, nails and hair. With insufficient zinc, he’ll be open to infections and more prone to allergies, night blindness and skin problems. He may have a poor sense of smell and taste (which will keep him wanting the highly flavoured, salty, sugary junk foods), mental lethargy, thinning hair, shortage of breath when exercising, stunted growth and slow sexual maturity. Phew! Zinc deficiency is also associated with fertility problems in adolescents and adults (and it’s worth knowing that sperm are very rich in zinc, so adolescent boys—and men—can sometimes lose significant quantities of zinc through this route!).

      White spots on your child’s fingernails (or yours) are good clues to zinc deficiency, as is proneness to infections. So are stretch marks on the skin (which may appear during growth spurts, or during pregnancy), although a lack of vitamin E and essential fatty acids will exacerbate these; as usual, these nutrients all work together.

      In terms of behavioural problems, zinc is also СКАЧАТЬ