They Are What You Feed Them: How Food Can Improve Your Child’s Behaviour, Mood and Learning. Dr Richardson Alex
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are) will affect her behaviour and performance.
At the next level, your child’s feelings will colour her thinking. If she feels bad about herself, she’s more likely to develop negative thought patterns and beliefs, and this can prevent her from trying to learn how tackle her own problems. The same applies to you, of course. If you ever find yourself thinking ‘I’ve failed as a parent’ or ‘I really can’t deal with this’, it will be because your own feelings at that moment are negative ones. You may be feeling overwhelmed, but when those feelings pass, you’ll think differently. It’s the same with your child.
Underneath your feelings (the things you can recognize, identify or put a name to), there is another level at work—and that involves your emotions. We’re on the physical level here—because your raw emotions actually reflect the constant shifts and changes going on at the level of your bodily functions, including your heart rate, your breathing, your digestion, and even the workings of your immune system. These things are governed by your ‘autonomic nervous system’ (which works without your conscious intervention, and usually without even your conscious awareness). They do, however, have a very powerful effect on everything you think, feel and do. In fact, your emotions are literally what ‘move you’ or motivate you to do anything. Think of them as ‘e-motions’—reflecting physical (electrical and chemical) energy in motion.11
At the very foundations, then, your emotions are affected by your physiology. In other words, the state of your body affects the state of your mind—and vice versa, of course.
When you use your mind to choose to do something—like going for a walk, talking to a friend, eating something healthy, or hugging your child instead of shouting at him—your decision will affect what happens to you physically. The exercise and fresh air from going for a walk will affect your body chemistry positively (whereas slumping in front of the TV or drowning your sorrows with a drink will have different physical effects). Sharing your concerns with a friend, or showing your child you love him, can also help you (and them) to relax and feel better—so you think more positively, and as a result will probably perform better than you otherwise would. Either eating something healthy or consoling yourself with junk food will also affect your body chemistry—but rather differently in each case.
I hope you can see why nutrition is the real bedrock of this physiological level—because your body’s repertoire will be influenced by the chemical raw materials that it has available. And the same goes for your brain. This is why food and diet really are fundamental to your child’s development, both physically and in the way his mind works.
Your child’s behaviour (and the mind-body links that create it) can be likened to an iceberg: only one small part is showing, but a whole lot more is going on beneath.12
What’s Behind the Labels?
As we’ve seen, the ‘diagnosis’ of most developmental difficulties focuses only on a few core features of behaviour and learning—as though these exist in isolation from the rest of the child. In fact, some other features seem common to almost all children with these kinds of labels—and many of them are consistent with known nutritional deficiencies and imbalances. I’ve always pointed this out in my own talks and lectures, and parents and front-line professionals usually recognize the picture (even if many researchers and so-called ‘experts’ prefer to keep focusing on their artificial pigeon-hole labels).
Then, a few years ago at a conference, I met another speaker whose introduction to her talk was almost exactly the same as mine! Her name is Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, and you’ll hear more about her work in later chapters. When her own child was given the ‘autism’ label and she was told that nothing could be done, she went and studied nutritional medicine, and worked out a diet that got him doing well at a normal school. What Natasha had recognized—and what my own work was uncovering—is that it’s all to do with ‘guts and brains’, and the links between them—in which your child’s immune system plays a major part. But where my talk went on to focus on research into omega-3 fatty acids—which you’ll hear more about in Chapters 8 and 9—Natasha’s talk emphasized the critical importance of gut bacteria (often called ‘gut flora’), which you’ll hear more about in Chapter 5. These are crucial to your child’s digestion, helping him to absorb and manufacture key nutrients. What’s more, along with omega-3 fatty acids, they also play a vital role in programming and supporting his immune system.
Guts and Brains
Autistic spectrum disorders in particular have been linked with digestive difficulties—but in fact all the conditions I’ve been describing in this chapter typically involve a history of gut problems, immune dysfunction, and difficulties with mood, arousal and perceptual skills as well as behaviour and learning. In Natasha’s book Gut and Psychology Syndromes13 she explains the connections between all these things, and provides details of her special diet for dealing with even extreme cases of autism. I’d recommend this book to any parent or professional dealing with these syndromes, and although the full diet is not necessary or suitable for every child, the principles are—and she includes some great recipes, too!
To illustrate some of the features Natasha and I had noticed in the children we were seeing, ask yourself whether any of the following apply to your child:
bottle-fed rather than breastfed (for whatever reason)
prescribed antibiotics at a young age (for repeated ear infections, for example)
prone to feeding difficulties/a fussy eater from weaning
suffers from allergies, repeated infections or other immune-system dysfunction
has other physical health problems (including digestive difficulties, headaches or other aches and pains)
has sleep problems
is prone to anxiety, depression or mood swings
is very susceptible to stress, with low frustration tolerance, possibly aggression
has perceptual as well as behaviour or learning difficulties, including visual and auditory symptoms.
The immune system has an extremely powerful influence on both our guts and our brains, from early development right through life. It plays a huge part in the connections between mind and body—but to work properly, your child’s immune system needs both the right nutrients and a proper balance of healthy gut flora. If your child shows many of the features above, read on.
Breastfeeding
In most cases, breastfeeding provides babies not only with the best possible nutrition, but also with various immune-enhancing substances—including what should be good bacteria from mother to get the baby’s own population of gut flora started.14
Allergies, Infections and the Immune System
Children with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD or autism seem unusually prone to ‘atopic’ (allergic) conditions like asthma, eczema and hay fever, indicating immune-system imbalances. Many have ear infections in early childhood, typically treated with antibiotics—which destroy the good gut bacteria along with the bad, weakening the immune system and perpetuating the problems. Other physical health complaints, including headaches, stomach aches and other digestive disorders, all fit the picture of ‘gut dysbiosis’ (an unhealthy imbalance of gut flora) and a lack of key nutrients including omega-3 fatty acids.
Sleep and Arousal
Disordered patterns of sleep and arousal from early infancy are common in children with behaviour and learning difficulties, and may reflect nutritional imbalances or adverse food reactions. Many parents