Dr Akilah – Celestial Healing Wellness Center

The Natural Health and Holistic World According to Dr Akilah

Tag Archives: ADHD

The Young and the Unhealthy

American Diet is making our kids fat

Parents will always do their best to keep their children safe, but there are some who unwittingly sacrifice their children’s health by allowing them to eat potentially harmful junk food without thinking about the consequences. Dr. Joseph Mercola warns that children’s preferences for salt, sugar and fat in foods are a result of what they’re fed.

USA Today says, “Parents need to carefully consider the types of foods they give to young children at home and in restaurants … Repeated exposure builds taste preferences.”

The Alarming Truth about American Children’s Diets

According to British chef and food advocate Jamie Oliver, our food culture has changed so drastically over the last 30 years. He says that the majority of children today don’t know what fresh, whole foods are. He illustrates how the three aspects of the “food landscape”—home, school, and main street—have all abandoned real food in favor of quick, cheap, processed foods.

A recent study revealed that junk food constitutes almost half of the calories ingested by average two to 18-year-old Americans. The sources of empty calories included:

  • Soda
  • Fruit drinks
  • Pizza
  • Dairy desserts like ice cream
  • Grain desserts (cake, cookies, and doughnuts)
  • Whole milk

Dr. Mercola says that this type of diet is the reason why many children in the U.S. and other parts of the world are undernourished.

Sodas are quickly turning our children into diabeticsSoda and Junk Food Affects Children’s Food Choices

One factor that affects children’s food preference is brand awareness. Researchers observed the link between the taste preferences of more than 100 preschool children and their emerging awareness of fast food and sugary drink brands. All of the children were able to pair at least some products with the companies that produced them.

“Children who were exposed to junk food, soda, and fast food — via advertising and also because their parents fed them these foods — learned to recognize and prefer these foods over healthier choices,” says Dr. Mercola.

Junk Food Also Affects Children’s IQ levels

A separate study discovered that children who consume large amounts of processed foods, fat, and sugar at the age of three have a lower IQ when they turn 8 ½ years old. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/feb/07/diet-children-iq)

“Every one-point increase in the study’s dietary pattern score – a record of processed fat intake – was associated with a 1.67-point fall in IQ,” The Guardian reports.

On the other hand, children with healthier diets have higher IQ levels. For every measured increase in dietary score—meaning the child eats more fruits and vegetables—a 1.2-point increase in IQ was seen.

Parents are Responsible for Their Children’s Healthy Diet

Children will not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, educate them. Learn more about proper nutrition and the dangers of junk food and processed foods, so you can change the food culture of your entire family. Lead by example, so your child will have the best start in life and develop healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.

America is the leading country in children obesityDr. Mercola recommends reading his nutrition plan, which will be the foundation of healthy food choices for your family. He advises cooking meals at home instead of buying processed, ready-to-eat food from restaurants and fast food chains.

Use whole foods when preparing meals. These are foods that have not been altered or processed from their original state. Whole foods have been grown or raised as nature intended, without chemical additives, pesticides, and fertilizers.

Dr. Mercola also advises taking probiotics. Processed foods and junk foods increase bad bacteria, leading to poor gut health. Probiotics replenishes the good bacteria in your digestive system and maintains the ideal ratio between good and bad bacteria.* For children who dislike taking pills, taking a probiotic supplement in powder form is the best option.

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ADD and ADHD- The Natural Cure

How to naturally, safely and “easily” Help Kids with ADD and ADHD

The first thing that needs to be understood is that the label of ADD and ADHD comes from a list of symptoms. And there are different causes for each symptom for each person. Said another way, every kid with the label of ADD or ADHD has different reasons why they got they label. So trying to treat “the ADD or ADHD” with one cure, whether natural or with drugs is never going to work.

The only thing you can do is add to the kid’s health and remove some of the common major contributing factors.

Some of the common major contributing factors to ADD and ADHD

  1. Sugar
  2. Allergies
  3. Food and Toxin Sensitivities
  4. Dehydration
  5. Home Environment
  6. (one that many parents hate to hear and often deny) Parenting

The average American “eats” over 300 lbs of refined carbohydrates – my definition of sugar. And since I don’t eat any, some people must eat 600 lbs.

Have you ever seen a kid on a “sugar high”? what happens? They act just about like every kid with the label of ADD and ADHD.

What many parents do not realize is all the disguises that sugar comes hidden in:

  • Bread
  • Pasta
  • Cereal
  • Flour
  • Milk
  • Juice
  • Ketchup
  • Chips
  • Crackers
  • Mayonnaise
  • Pizza
  • Frozen food
  • Canned and Frozen vegetables
  • Canned and Frozen fruit
  • Almost anything in a jar
  • Almost anything in a can

Along with the obvious ones:

  • Ice cream
  • Candy
  • Soda
  • Cookies
  • Chocolate
  • Most treat

And just about everything you buy in the grocery store. If you read the labels, the actual written out ingredients, not the white and black lined label that really tells you nothing, but the fine print label you have to look for. If you read that label on everything you buy you will see how refined carbohydrates are added to almost literally EVERYTHING you buy.

Why — because anything that rhymes with “gross” is a form of sugar. Glucose, dextrose, maltose, sucrose, fructose, and a couple others like corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

Allergies and food and toxin sensitivities are pretty much one in the same when it comes to kids with ADD and ADHD

The artificial colors, flavors and preservatives that are in most grocery store foods are the biggest culprit in this category.

In some kids these “toxins” are literally causing an “allergic reaction” of the behaviors often diagnosed as ADD and ADHD.

When you switch the child to a completely natural diet (organic) and free of man made junk, it is a huge step forward in having a “normally” behaving child again.

Dehydration is another huge contributing factor. The reason why this is so true is because the only thing that counts as water is water. Soda, kool-aide, pop, juice, sports drinks and everything that has anything added to it the body does not process and use the same as good old fashioned water.

So if your child (or you for that matter) is not drinking water as your main source of liquids, you are dehydrated.

Why does dehydration contribute to ADD or ADHD?

Let me ask you a question. What would happen if you through a toaster plugged into the wall into the bath with you? You would get a “nice” shock because electricity travels through water.

What does your brain and nerves control in your body?

EVERYTHING!!!!

And your brain and nerves are 80% water which is literally what the electrical impulses of the brain travel down.

So if there is a shortage of water, the “proper” messages are going to be jittered, scrambled and jumpy, just like the behavior of kids often diagnosed with ADD and ADHD.

Home environment and parenting.

There is this culture in Central America that has very little to no contact with the outside world. And one of the most interesting things about them, I find, is how they raise their kids. They never yell, they never have to punish them, and the kids always do what they are told/asked.

Upon questioning this group they ask them, how is that possible? And the answer they give is simple. We don’t’ ask them not to be a child. Have you ever seen a kid not be a kid? Have you ever seen a bird, not be a bird? If you just allow a kid to be a kid, they will always be perfect as a kid.

Said another way, it is our social conditioning that kids rebel against. It is in their nature to be kids. It has been for millions of years. When you/we ask them to not be a kid it is like asking a rabbit not to jump.

You wouldn’t think of asking a bird not to fly or a cat not to meow. That is what they do. That is who they are. And if you do ask that, well, good luck and have fun.

The same goes or kids. Kids have more energy because they still have more health in their bucket. They have more freedom and less fears and inhibitions stopping them. They are not concerned with how the other people in the grocery store will judge them. They don’t care about what their friends think. (until they get older and model the behavior of needing to “look good”) They are kids. Accept that they are kids and allow them to be kids and a lot of the ADD and ADHD behavior goes away.

Coupled with increasing their health and eliminating some of the other major contributing factors I talked about above, Ritalin can become a thing of the past.

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