By on July 24, 2008
The Australian Government is giving the green light to use drugs as the first line of treatment for ADHD. Doctors and specialists no longer need to pretend to search for a cause behind a child’s behavioural and learning problems they can now simply write out a prescription for Ritalin or dexamphetamine, drugs from the same family as cocaine, opium and morphine. Diet and lifestyle it seems has nothing to do with learning and behavioural problems, these children apparently suffer from nothing more than a simple Ritalin deficiency.
A recent Australian Government set of draft guidelines for ADHD recommends drugs as the first line of treatment for school children diagnosed with ADHD.
These guidelines will be used by teachers, doctors, carers of children and the legal system. Other points of concern in these ADHD guidelines include:
- Parents need to be told that elimination diets designed to avoid food additives, preservatives, allergenic foods and sugar may be of little or no benefit
- The use of dietary supplements such as essential fatty acids have little or no benefit
- An “analysis” of studies shows that sugar consumption does not affect a childs behaviour or cognitive performance
- There is little or no benefit to complimentary and alternative treatments including naturopathy, homoeopathy, chiropractic and educational techniques.
Reading between the lines, these guidelines also state that there are no conclusive tests to diagnose ADHD and in fact there are no studies that prove ADHD is even a real medical condition. In short, they’re saying that there is no science to support the use of diet and complementary medicine to treat a disease that cannot even be proven to exist with current scientific studies, but despite this, drugs should be the first line of treatment.
While these guidelines won’t effect every parents decision on treatment choice if their child suffers from learning and behavioural problems, it will mean that many more children will be prescribed drugs due to pressure from doctors and teachers if these draft guidelines are allowed to pass. It also means that parents could potentially be charged with negligence for failing to ‘medicate’ their child with drugs if they decide to pursue other treatment options first.
Does Diet and Lifestyle Effect a Child’s Behaviour and Learning?
Sleep
You know yourself how a few nights of not enough or poor quality sleep leaves you feeling. Your ability to learn and retain information is compromised, you’re irritable and don’t cope very well under pressure or in stressful situations. In fact sleep deprivation is considered to be a common cause of many workplace accidents. Driving while sleep deprived is as dangerous as driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Earlier in the year a study was released showing the not enough or poor quality sleep can adversely affect a child’s behaviour and ability to learn. Sleep problems could in fact be a contributing factor to ADHD.
Children with allergies often suffer from enlarged adenoids which results in a form of sleep apnoea. Many parents report enormous changes in their child’s behaviour and learning when enlarged tonsils and adenoids are removed. Removing the allergy provoking foods from a child’s diet can produce the same results.
Children who don’t sleep well are often not hungry at breakfast time and are quite happy to skip breakfast.
Diet
Fats are essential for a child’s developing brain and nervous system. As well as the omega 3 essential fatty acids that receive all the press, children actually require more cholesterol for growth and development.
A low fat diet tends to be a high carb diet by default and the types of carbohydrates that most kids prefer come with a side serving of artificial colourings, preservatives, stabilisers and flavour enhancers. The Feingold diet for ADHD restricts these chemicals as well as a naturally occurring chemical in foods called salicylates. Salicylate intolerance can produce defiant and hyperactive behaviour in children.
A child who starts their day with a sugar laden breakfast cereal or even worse, nothing at all is going to find it difficult to concentrate and retain information at school. Common sense tells us that this will be the case (but apparently common sense isn’t very common these days), we don’t need scientific studies to tell us that a good breakfast is essential for growing children. The definition of a ‘good’ breakfast can vary considerably depending on who you talk with.
One of the most common side effects of Ritalin in children is a lack of appetite. These children don’t want to eat breakfast while on their medication, they don’t want to sit down and eat food at meal times exacerbating any existing nutritional deficiencies.
Other nutrients commonly associated with learning and behavioural disorders in children include:
- Zinc
- Iron
- Calcium and Magnesium
- B Complex
Other factors that may play a role in behavioural and learning problems in children include:
- Heavy metal toxicity (this can be assessed using hair mineral analysis)
- Allergies
- Candidiasis
- Chemical sensitivities (to food and environmental chemicals)
- Auditory processing problems (auditory processing is the difference between hearing and listening. Your child’s hearing can be OK but they struggle to process the information they hear due to nutritional deficiencies or a history of ear infections or glue ear at the age when neural pathways are developing)
Every child is unique. While ADHD may not be a real disease, learning and behavioural problems are real. The one thing that every child can benefit from regardless of the underlying causative factor is a healthy diet full of healthy traditional fats.
Our obsession with fats, especially saturated fat and cholesterol being public enemy No. 1 is resulting in the continued deterioration of the health of our children from the moment they’re conceived through to adulthood. Disorders of the immune system, digestive system, skin, lungs and nervous system are reaching epidemic proportions. While medication can produce a dramatic turn around in a child’s behaviour and academic performance in a short space of time we need to change our focus from medication to education. Instead it seems that our government is quite happy to drug kids into submission with the very same substances that would have them arrested as criminals if they chose to self medicate with cocaine, heroin or amphetamines as young adults.
