With the onset of another school year, many parents are concerned with ADD and ADHD. Rightly so. This is a label placed upon (mostly) children at ever-increasing rates.

It’s challenging for me to buy into the idea of a diagnosis for which there is no quantitative test, and for which part of the affirmative diagnosis involves a change in behavior in response to the ‘appropriate’ medication.

Of course I wholeheartedly believe that there are countless children who fit the parameters of these conditions. I am not ignorant, nor do I live on the moon. I’m just not convinced that these behaviors are indications of a shortage in Ritalin or its sister drugs.

Also, I fully understand that the prescribed medication most certainly does change the way the child behaves. I respectfully understand that giving the child the prescribed medication has changed the dynamic of many families in a very positive way. Again, no ignorance here.

In the case of the drugs used, I’m simply not convinced they’re in the best interest of a child’s long-term health, function and happiness. Also, I’m not convinced that other lifestyle changes couldn’t accomplish the same positive changes in a child, without the negative consequences. All drugs change some function of the body, so it’s no “surprise” that a child would act differently once on the drug. The question is, does the drug address the cause of the problem? Does it contribute to better health… or does it cause harm? What’s the desired outcome? Is it just to change behavior? Or is it to change behavior while protecting, and possibly improving, health?

Real questions that each family needs to address.

What I tend to consistently see in the vast majority of children diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, or anxiety disorders is that the child is out of balance in one or more major elements of a healthy lifestyle.

Optimal health and function, including mental and emotional health, require consistently making pure and sufficient choices in nutrition, movement and mindset. This optimal function is also dependent upon reducing or eliminating toxic and deficient choices in lifestyle.

This ideal scenario is unfortunately not the norm in a growing number of families living in industrialized, affluent countries.

We have kids growing up eating unbalanced toxic diets, loaded with refined grains, sugar, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and trans fats/hydrogenated fats. Kids’ diets are loaded with nutrient-deficient and toxic cereal, bread, junk foods, convenience snack foods, fast food, pop, juice, sports drinks, low-fat and fat-free conventional dairy products, toxic conventional meat and eggs, and so much more.

Meanwhile, they’re missing out on the innate genetic requirements for nutritional health: REAL food, whole food, food closest to its naturally occurring state, pure foods and fresh, raw foods.

The average North American diet results in a devastating imbalance of the critical essential fatty acids, omega 6 and omega 3. This is the healthy fat that’s required for the brain to function normally. It must exist in a healthy ratio of 1:1, omega 6:omega 3, or 2:1. But, we’re commonly seeing diets where the ratio is 20:1 and higher. The brain cannot function properly under these conditions.

The modern diet has excessive omega 6 essential fatty acids and is dangerously deficient in omega 3′s. Trans fats found in virtually all conventional “factory” foods, junk food, fast food, snack foods, crackers, and so on are the reason we become so toxic with omega 6. We’re deficient in our natural sources of omega 3 since we no longer regularly consume enough deep cold-water wild fish, grass-fed meats and free-range eggs.

The nutritional answer, that directly changes the brain “chemistry”, is to supplement with pure and sufficient fish oil, add more pure food sources (like deep, cold-water fish, grass-fed meats and free-range whole eggs) to the regular diet, while simultaneously reducing or eliminating toxic foods that poison us and send us into such a dangerous imbalance of brain fats.

Kids are more sedentary than at any other time in history. While technology has granted us countless blessings, computers, television, movies, video games, cell phones, and many other offshoots of the technological age have resulted in kids sitting on their gluteal regions for far too long each day!

It also begs the question, “What’s going into our kids’ minds on a regular basis?” What kind of images, words, attitudes are they learning through these activities. Sure, some of it is beneficial. But, c’mon! Most of it is questionable at best. It has a very real effect on the way children see their world and how they respond to it.

Daily challenging movement is a requirement for health and a requirement for normal function of the brain. Movement generates proprioception which literally ‘feeds’ the brain. In addition to many other health-promoting effects, proprioception from movement stimulates the neurological pathways that stimulate learning, memory, attention and balanced emotions.

Finally, children and adults alike must nurture their mental, emotional, social and spiritual health. Kids need regular input of positive, empowering, uplifting, fulfilling thoughts and need to avoid and/or have a reliable way to offset the effects of toxic, stressful thoughts and emotions.

I believe that a sincere, consistent effort must be made to:
1. Feed children a balanced diet full of real, whole, pure foods with little toxicity – this includes supplementing with a very high quality fish oil and avoiding the biggest toxic offenders like high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, refined grains, refined sugar, trans fats, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.
2. Provide opportunities for daily movement and exercise.
3. Focus attention on their overall happiness and their ability to appropriately respond to the stressors in their environment.

If all these requirements for health and function are being met I’d expect to see drastic improvement in a child’s behavior, moods, outlook on life and ability to respond appropriately to the world around them. We owe it to our kids to pull out all the stops when helping them achieve better health and brain function. We live in a culture that is all too quick to medicate rather than address the underlying causes. In life-saving endeavors this is justified. In the case of a child’s lifetime of health, this is unnerving.

Healthy choices result in health. Help your kids make healthier choices in nutrition, movement and mindset.

(FYI: You can find my personal recommendations for superior nutritional supplements on our practice website www.LifetimeWellness.net in the Wellness Proshop tab along the left side of the page.)

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