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Saturday, September 5, 2009

Injuring with Kindness?

Are we injuring our kids with kindness? Are kids being misdiagnosed and loaded with meds to correct issues that are caused by failures in their diets?

When did we become a society that can't say "No"?

No isn't easy. I hate to say no to my daughter. I hate seeing the disappointment in her face. I hate seeing hurt and confusion when it seems like something that other kids are doing- like eating candy canes at the holiday season.

But when did we as a society start saying "No" to things like making a dinner or even pouring a bowl of cereal in the morning? When did we start saying "Yes" to convenience food at every meal?

I recently started part time work at a local grocery store. It is a very busy store and I see hundreds of people each day that I work. One thing that has struck me is how much convenience food is loaded into the carts. I have been working at this job for a month and a half now and I have yet to memorize all the four digit codes for fruits and vegetables. I was expecting to have them memorized in the first week because I was figuring on them coming through my lane much more often. I have been appalled at how much "fake food" is in each cart and how little "real food" is purchased.

I maybe seeming to jump off course here for a second, but have you noticed the rising numbers of children diagnosed with attention deficiet disorder? Hyperactivity? Obesity? Are we seeing a trend of unhealthy children?

I am sure that had my mother not been so determined to find out what was going on with me when my allergies started to surface, that I would have been one of the number of children diagnosed with some sort of personality disorder. Would I have been labeled as ADHD or maybe bi-polar because of the swing from rage to normal rational child? Or perhaps anti-social disorder?

Now, please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that these disorders don't actually exist. And I understand that better medical reporting is bound to cause an upswing in numbers of diagnosis reported each year. However I think the astronomical growth of these types of disorders MUST have something to do with our diet, our environment, our society.

Our society went from wholesome homecooked meals and homestyle cooked meals when dining out to fast food, convienence food laden with dyes, chemicals, and preservatives. Our eating habits have evolved faster than our bodies have learned to cope with new chemicals, fat combinations (Hydrogenation anyone?), and dyes. No wonder our bodies and minds are all messed up.

Current research has shown that a whole foods diet (aka no convienence foods) shows a drastic improvement of attention span with children diagnosed with ADHD.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_243/ai_109946530/

Just some "food" for thought. Are we killing with kindness when we don't say "NO" to the fast food, the convienence food, the food filled with dyes and processed sugars? Are we injuring with kindness when we don't look beyond what the easy diagnosis is? Is it really ADHD, Bi-polar or is it something else like cerebral allergies? Has your doctor ever heard of cerebral allergies? If not do you want a second opinion?

3 comments:

  1. I just found your blog, and feel for you all to have to be going through this. I had a few allergies has a child. But when I was pregnant the first time I became allergic to Bananas. It is really bad too. I have a Epi-pen with me at all times. I have to take Benadrl 90% of the time when I go to walmrt, because i will have touched something at some point were a Banana had been or touched. It's awful. In the winter of 2007 we started trying new foods, cooking a lot of stuff out of books or on TV. And I got really sick for about 5mths. Went to Drs and got meds. But never put it with the new foods. Finly we went to the allergy clinic and had test done. My back lit up like a Christmas tree, (there words not mine) and i found I was alergic to most of the food we were eating and was lucky not to have had a deathly reaction. Im alergic to green beans, hops, garlic, all green pepers, white potatoes, some nutts, soy, latex, bananas (we knew that) and there is about five others. This is stuff we were eating daily. So I had to start keeping a food diary, and now I know what my triggers are and am finding there is other stuff i can not eat. I read labels and was suprised at what stuff as in it. Garlic and soy are in almost every thing!! and marinades for meats have banana puree in them. With the dairy I have found that I can eat some foods at some restaurants and not others, which is odd to us.. My 3 year old is now showing signs of food allergies and we can't get any one to test him till he is at least 6!! Cinnamon will do him like your daughter gets. Since my allergies got worse with each pregnacy it concerns me on how much may bother him. So I keep him a diary and don't let him have things that seem to bother him. They also want to test him for aspergers, (mild autism) so know we are looking in to the wheat free diet. Most people think were crazy cause of all the allergies and I have found that some old frinds don't want to make exceptions when we came over to eat. Because they cook with spices that I can't have, so we stay home know. It has nade it hard at times but it's the way I am. I was happy to find your blog and sorry this is so long. Maybe some of the things you go through can help with what my son may go through. Thank You for Your Time!! Heather

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  2. Wow, Heather! My heart goes out to you. I sympathize with being allergic to everything! AND to having people just not get it. My babysitter/nanny that took care of me for a few hours after school when I was little didn't get it either. She thought that if I just started eating things I was allergic to slowly that I would get my body used to it. That didn't work!

    I think you are very smart to keep a food diary for yourself as well as your son. I don't know much about Aspergers, but what I have heard about it and Autism is that a lot of doctors are looking at the food link. Perhaps by watching his diet and his symptoms you can manage any reaction that happens?

    Thanks for posting your story!

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  3. How are things going with the baby? My daughter has multiple food allergies. It took us a very long time to admit that was the problem. My husband and I both have families who tell us that we were difficult children and our child will grow out of it too. We were in denial and just kept waiting for her next birthday. We went from the terrible twos to the terrible threes and on to 4. I had thought of diet changes but felt like she had a "good" diet so I still didn't think that was the problem. Finally one event made the connection. Our girl had a piece of chocolate and an hour later her eyes were sunk into her face, and complete emotional meltdown. She claimed that it hurt when her father touched her. We are currently doing an elimination diet with the help of an allergist. After only one day, my child is taking a nap. On a regular day I would be in a wrestling match for the last hour and a half and there is no way I would be able to take her out of the house for the rest of the evening.

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