Dear Readers,
Today’s query came from a friend who asked me if I could speak to the impact of diet on children’s brains. She wrote, “My grandson is two, and he is not used to eating any dyes, or chemical laden candies. Another family member gave him a popsicle and my daughter in law said he literally became mean (and he’s usually like a Buddha baby all around). I don’t think parents realize how much impact their snack/food choices have on their children’s wellbeing – and instead of eliminating the culprits – ie the Mars bar from the snack cupboard, they put their child on Ritalin. Can you help connect the dots? What impact do processed foods, wheat, dairy, dyes, etc. have on children’s brains?”
What a great question! Of course, my friend knows this is right up my alley! But before I give you the complete low down on just how much our kids’ brains are impacted by food and which foods we know are contributing to this, I want to share with you two scenarios. Both are real events and are not exaggerated in any way.
Scenario 1: Every child in the daycare runs to meet their parents as they come through the door. Some are waiting eagerly at the edge of the playroom while others are playing with legos and action heroes and colouring books, but with one eye on the door. Except one. It’s odd. Each morning he comes in unable to let go of mom’s leg and tracks her in the long day care picture window, sobbing and smearing the glass with his tears and snot, as she leaves. It takes an hour to distract him and calm him down. When he does calm, his ears are red and his face remains flushed, with a perpetual cold sore under his lip, and black rings around his eyes. He looks like he’s not taken care of, except he’s dressed like someone cares and you couldn’t ask for a more doting mom. You’d think when she returns he would run to greet her, but instead he throws a fit and refuses to leave, making her chase him around the centre and often lashing out when caught. Daycare staff secretly enjoy this, though. It’s some small retribution after the trouble he’s been all day, to see mom running after him, exhausted. He’s such a handful - always biting other kids and flying off the handle and always that string of thick snot from his nose. There’s rarely a day that isn’t filled with his drama triggering other well behaved kids. When mom leaves with him looking like she just lost a wrestling match they all let out a sigh of relief. It’s unclear how much longer anyone can handle him.
Scenario 2: A handsome little boy is going out for his special birthday dinner. He has just turned 9. He’s excited because he’s gotten a game cube and he can play Luigi’s Haunted Mansion now! And his mother is taking him to the Chinese buffet in their town - his favourite! He’s wearing his best brown khaki pants and a nice red pullover sweater with his hair combed nicely. His face is lit up with anticipation! He’s listing off the foods he’s going to eat on the ride. When they arrive he is mannerly and tries to use his utensils like he’s supposed to. The knife is tricky. Mom makes him eat his protein first and only lets him have water. He wants a soda and asks 4 times but mom isn’t having it. The shrimps are good even without the red sauce and the sushi is his favourite. After about 30 minutes and 2 plates mom says he can have some dessert. She settles in with her coffee. This is the best part!
He starts with some ice cream and sprinkles and some cakes and a sweet bar. Halfway through the plate, something shifts. His shoulders hunch and his head tucks down into his chest. His rounded back starts to heave with his breaths. Mom signals for the cheque. If you didn’t know what to look for you might miss it. But she knows. Oh God, she knows. Now? Here of all places? She has got to get him home fast. She asks him if he wants to take a plate to go and get back to play his new game. Does he want her to get him some sushi for later? Some of his favourite shrimps? But her offers are cut short.
The next words out of his mouth are so low it sounds like a different person. He’s looking up at her through his dark lashes, full lips now an angry snarl, eyes just minutes before sparkling, now glaring icily. “You just don’t want me to have a good time. You take me here to have a nice birthday but then you want to rip it away like everything gets ripped. You make your plans just to rip me down. Get off my back, woman.” He’s showing his teeth now, the way he does, like a snarling animal, fork in his clenched fist. People have started to notice and she’s stopped signalling for the cheque and is now putting her coat on and praying silently, God let us get out of here before he starts throwing things, before he gets any worse. Let us just get to the car before he blows. Not here, God. Please, not here.
Both of these situations are examples of a child with severe food intolerances that did not show up on testing done by allergists and was not determined by any doctor or specialist the mother saw. And there were dozens. Both are the same child. And both are my son. The change I witnessed in him after determining the food intolerances and changing his diet is the reason I’m a nutritionist today. Now let’s get down to unpacking what on earth children’s behaviour has to do with food.
Behaviour and Health Problems - What’s the Connection?
Let’s start with the basics. We know children’s behaviour has deteriorated tremendously over the last 50 years. Sociologists debate the causes. Is screen time ruining their minds? Is overparenting causing spoiled, undisciplined kids? Is the lack of corporal punishment or the prevalence of broken homes to blame? Children’s magazines and mothers’ social groups highlight the arguments for and against these. But I’d like to propose something different. I’d like to propose that the foodstuff we give our children today is largely so toxic that their bodies are in a perpetual state of inflammation.
In some this inflammation goes to the lungs and we have asthmatic children. In some it goes to the skin and we have kids with eczema, or it goes to the immune system and we have kids with hives, and with pronounced allergic reactions. In some it goes much deeper and we have brain inflammation - ADD/ ADHD or learning disabilities.
Why do I think this? Well, before I discovered my son’s food intolerances he was given several diagnoses: defiance disorder, bipolar disorder, ADD, and schizoaffective disorder. All by the age of 9. And after I discovered these food intolerances and how to feed him to avoid them (a whole different topic altogether) he was a different child - overnight. His diagnoses even changed to high functioning Autism. But that was masked by the mental health problems brought out by foods he was reacting to. And his reactions to food have continued to be that marked to this very day. His personality literally changes when he gets too much sugar and inflammatory or excitatory foods.
What’s Sugar Got to Do With It?
Let’s just consider a few things here. First, let’s look at the average sugar consumption per person through the years:
- 1700: 4.9 grams per day (4 pounds of sugar each year)
- 1800: 22.4 grams per day (18 pounds each year)
- 1900: 112 grams each day, (90 pounds each year)
- 2009: 50 percent of Americans consumed approximately 227 grams (1/2 pound) of sugar per day (180 pounds each year)
The source of this data is an excellent article on the history of sugar consumption by Kamila Laura Sitwell, published here. It’s a very well written synopsis.
Now let’s consider the sugar content in some common children’s foods:
- Cereals: 1 tsp - 6 tsp sugar in 1 cup of children’s cereal (highest here)
- Fruit roll ups: 1 tsp sugar in 1 roll up
- Granola bars: 1.4 to 4 tsp
- Orange juice: 10+ tsp sugar in a single serving bottle
- Children’s yogurts: 1-6 tsp sugar in a single serving container
- Vitamin water: 8 tsp in a single serving bottle
- Iced teas: 15-17 tsp sugar in single serving bottle
- Can of soda: 7.5+ tsp sugar in a single can
- Chocolate milk: 4.8 tsp in a single cup
To be clear, fruit also contains naturally occurring sugars. But in a serving of whole fruit we also get vitamins, minerals, bioflavonoids, and fibre. These are missing from their processed counterparts.
As you can see, the sugar content has continually risen. That’s likely not news to you. But do you know that sugar has been determined to be more addictive than cocaine in rat studies? Or that it triggers the dopamine centre of the brain? Or that it is proven to cause dysregulation of our ability to recognize when we’ve eaten enough? Or that it feeds the undesirable bacteria in our guts, which we now know are connected to learning and behavioral abnormalities? Let’s look at what studies have concluded:
“New research has shown in a rodent model that daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages during adolescence impairs performance on a learning and memory task during adulthood. The group further showed that changes in the bacteria in the gut may be the key to the sugar-induced memory impairment.” UoG
“A series of questionnaire studies demonstrated children who drink more than 4 servings of sugary beverages per day are much more likely to exhibit mental distress and depression. These individuals also had more school conduct problems than others who consumed less sugary beverages.” (AJPH)
“Another study found that young children had more difficulty concentrating and exhibited more conduct problems after taking as little as 6 ounces of juice sweetened by sucrose.” (Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology)
“An Australia research study shows in young rat models that taking in excessively high amounts of sugary beverages can alter the brain the same way prolonged stress and emotional trauma do to the hippocampus in the rats’ developing brains. For children who are experiencing a lot of changes in their brains, the high level of sugar intake can cause hyperglycemia and result in elevated secretion of cortisol seen only in extreme maltreating circumstances. Depending on the amount of sugar intake, the cortisol level can escalate as much as 5 times the normal range.” (Endocrine)
So added sugars - and especially highly processed sugars - are harmful to children’s health. For source material and copious data on how sugars harm children in utero, go to the Diabetes Council website.
Do Diet and Vitamins Really Affect Mental Health?
These studies say yes.
“In a study of 120 children and adolescents, consuming fast food, sugar and soft drinks was associated with a higher prevalence of diagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).” (Pediatrics, Vol. 139, No. 2, 2017) source
“A meta-analysis including studies from 10 countries, conducted by researchers at Linyi People's Hospital in Shandong, China, suggests that dietary patterns may contribute to depression.” (Psychiatry Research, Vol. 253, 2017) source
And from the American Naturopathic Medical Association Monitor and The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, published here, researchers treated clients with ADD and ADHD with nutritional supplements and specialized diets to see the outcomes. They reported:
“Sensitivities to foods were commonly found in this study at a rate (90.3%) which greatly exceeds that found by most medically-oriented researchers [4]. This may be because most people with ADD/ADHD probably do not have class I food allergies (where IgE is raised).” and “... many had multiple intolerances.”
This means the subjects had serious food intolerances that impacted their behaviour but weren’t caught by standard allergy tests. There were 12 different food groups the subjects reacted to, but they were not universally applicable. They varied, so the need for analysis that helps accurately determine which foods trigger the child is essential. The foods that were most reactive for the participants were: “bovine dairy products 41.9%, food colors/preservatives 22.6%, refined carbohydrates (sucrose, white sugar, white rice, white flour) 19.4%, wheat (whole and white) 19.4%, and caffeine containing products 9.7%.”
“Children who do not consume dairy products or who are unknowingly sensitive (or allergic) to bovine dairy products are at risk for developing at least mild ADD.” This was linked to calcium deficiency. It further states, “Since calcium is needed for the neuromuscular system [16], it is no wonder that children with deficiencies demonstrate so-called behavioral problems. Regarding supplementation, typical multi-formulas did not appear to be adequate by themselves (not enough calcium appeared available for absorption).”
“100.0% of participants (or their parents) reported behavioral improvement within 40 days.”
My son was sensitive to all of the above. His behaviour changed overnight once we knew the right diet to follow and even more so once therapeutic doses of supplements were added.
What About Medications?
We need to say a bit about the medications that are typically used for behaviour problems in children here. Classically this included stimulants, like Ritalin and Adderall, but now they have expanded to include antidepressants, antipsychotics, and even anti-anxiety drugs. These drugs are now known to cause horrible side effects that can be permanent and can make it very difficult to stop the drug(s) if desired. But I understand some people swear by them. They feel better with the medications. This article is not to lay shame or blame on parents or youth for seeking medication when they don’t feel well or aren’t functioning well. Instead, I’ve written it to highlight a safer, more natural first line treatment option and some of the data on the efficacy of that option.
Professional Help
I realize determining food intolerances is difficult work. I do not recommend elimination diets in families with children for a variety of reasons, including deficiencies and imbalances that can result. It’s always best to work with an experienced professional for safe direction when dealing with children’s dietary needs. I invite you to reach out if you feel this would help your child. I can say it has had an incredible, life-changing impact on mine.
Thank you, Sari for the great question! You know I love talking about this issue after my experiences. And I love working with children, since children respond so quickly to interventions. It’s super satisfying to see a previously struggling child start to thrive and get that positive feedback little hearts so desperately need!
As always I welcome reader questions. You can write me anytime at [email protected]. While you’re at it, sign up for my free newsletter at hopenotdope.ca to be advised of upcoming online cooking classes and workshops wherein we’ll explore the role of delicious, whole foods in good health. Subscribers will also get their names on the list for a $200 Christmas homeopathic first aid kit giveaway!
Namaste!
Nonie Nutritionista
