Provided by Family Wellness First, published by ICPA, Inc., Issue #7, written by Kelly Hayford, C.N.C.
Fact: Researchers say that for the first time in a century, today’s children will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. – Texas Children’s Hospital Study
The food industry aims their heaviest marketing artillery at children, the most impressionable segment of our society, with the intention of creating lifelong consumers of their fake-food products. And they’ve been very successful. Diet related health statistics that have emerged in recent decades for children are the scariest of all.
For the first time in history, conditions that were previously associated with aging are now showing up in children at younger and younger ages. Major diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even heart attacks, have now reached unprecedented numbers among our youth.
As the stewards of this next generation we must do everything possible to turn this trend around and give our children every opportunity to live healthy lives. We’re not only robbing them of their childhoods, but the quality of their adulthoods, and sometimes their very lives as well.
Despite the troubling predictions and burgeoning health crisis that is emerging, an abundant supply of soda and junk food continues to flow into the mouths of our youngsters. One of the most alarming dispensaries of these anti-nutrients is in the very place children should be the safest from manipulative marketing maneuvers—our public schools.
The good news is, you have complete control over what comes into your house and makes its way into your cupboards. This is also where you have the most influence. The more you clean up your own diet and restore your own health and energy, the more you’ll be an energetic dynamo and role model for helping your children. You can also join with other concerned parents in speaking out at your children’s schools and community activities.
Fact: At Texas Children’s Hospital, the percentage of children and adolescents diagnosed with type 2 diabetes increased from less than 1% twenty years ago to 27% in 2002.
Same Guidelines Apply
When considering what to feed your children, the same universal Eating-for-Health Guidelines apply (see previous article, If It’s Not Food, Don’t Eat It!). Because their bodies are smaller and still developing you’ll want to be even more vigilant, as children are extra sensitive to low-quality anti-nutrient foods and the many noxious substances they contain, such as MSG, food colorings, and preservatives. They’re also hypersensitive to stimulants such as sugar and caffeine. Unfortunately, the fake foods made especially for kids are loaded with all of the above.
So many children’s delicate systems aren’t able to function properly because they’re not getting the nutrients they need. At the same time they’re consuming anti-nutrients and stimulants that further interfere with their ability to function normally. There are millions of children today thought to have a host of conditions who are in fact, merely lacking proper nutrition.
Take any child off processed, packaged fake foods, sugar, caffeine and any common food allergens to which they may be sensitive (i.e., follow the Eating-for-Health Guidelines), and you will see a significant improvement in their behavior and physical well-being, no matter what conditions they may currently have. Feed them lots of whole, fresh, natural foods and be sure they’re getting an adequate amount of essential fatty acids and green foods (the two things most missing from the Standard American Diet) and the changes you’ll see will astound you.
Fact: A study at the ADHD Research Center in the Netherlands, found that 64% of children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food.
Make Nutrition a Priority
Unless your child is having an acute situation that demands urgent intervention, please explore safe, natural approaches that emphasize nutritional factors before you subject your little ones to dangerous, traumatic surgeries, procedures, and toxic drugs.
There are thousands of surgeries performed every year on children who have had recurrent ear infections, for example; surgeries that frequently could have been prevented by identifying and eliminating offending foods from the child’s diet. Either do some research and experimenting on your own or work with a chiropractor or other holistic practitioner who is knowledgeable about food sensitivities. Also be sure to have your child’s spine checked by a chiropractor, as nerve interference is often at the root of childhood conditions including ear infections and bed wetting.
By now I hope you are convinced that helping your children to eat well is essential, and have a pretty good idea of what to feed them. But I know what many of you are probably thinking at this point—actually getting them to eat better is another story.