It seems like plain common sense: what you feed your child really can affect the way they behave, their concentration, focus and their health. But with the barrage of information we get, not to mention new research coming out saying different things every month, it’s hard to keep that in mind when it comes to keeping our kids healthy.
But, says Patrick Holford, one of the UK’s leading nutrition experts, transforming the way your family eats will help us experience the benefits for ourselves and see them in our children. Here’s his five-point plan to helping children balance their mood and improve their concentration.
1. Take your child off foods with additives or added sugar
Sugar creates imbalances in energy that can contribute to erratic behaviour and mood changes. Sweets, chocolates, cakes, biscuits, some breakfast cereals, soft drinks, puddings and many other foods all contain sugar in one of its many forms. When checking labels, look out for sucrose, glucose, maltose, dextrose, inverted sugar syrup, golden syrup, corn syrup and treacle.
Also check for additives ? artificial colourings, sweeteners, preservatives and flavourings can all contribute to adverse behaviour, particularly the orange colouring tartrazine (E102) found in some orange squashes and sweets. So avoid giving your child processed foods and opt instead for natural and sugar-free alternatives.
2. Increase fruit and veg and foods rich in nutrients
Rather than letting your child fill up on junk food, give them whole, nutritious food to eat. White bread, rice and pasta have the nutrients stripped out, so opt instead for wholemeal varieties, which are also more filling and contain fibre to encourage healthy digestion.
Ensure too their diet is rich in fresh fruit and vegetables which provide vitamins and minerals essential to support their health while they are growing. Some children may be reluctant to swap the sweets for an apple, but if you hold firm, often their sweet tooth will recede. Also use your imagination to make fresh food more exciting ? tempt them with bite-size snacks of cherry tomatoes or grapes, bake apples or bananas with sultanas and serve with creamy Greek yoghurt, cut vegetables into fun shapes to eat with dips, or pure? and ?disguise? in sauces and soups.
For children who are used to a diet of processed food such as chicken nuggets or fish fingers, it may help to switch across first to a home made equivalent such as chicken strips and fish cakes and then gradually introduce more vegetables into the mix eg fish and broccoli cakes. That way their taste buds gradually adjust to natural vegetable flavours.
3. Boost levels of essential fats
Some fats, like saturated varieties found in processed meats and fried foods, are bad for health, but others are essential and a deficiency could negatively impact on your child?s behaviour. For example, the brain and nervous system needs a good supply of fat to function and develop effectively. To ensure your child gets enough essential fats you have three choices:
Oily fish?three times a week OR A heaped tablespoon of freshly-ground seeds on their cereal or sprinkled on soups or in salads every day OR supplement essential fats. This could either be a fish oil (which contains omega 3 fats) or a seed oil (which contains a blend of omega 3 and omega 6 fats).
4. Supplement the diet
It?s hard to get all the nutrients we need from our diet, so to be sure your child is not deficient, supplement their diet with a good-quality daily multivitamin and mineral designed for children. Most small children cannot swallow so they will need to be chewable.
5. Eliminate allergens from the diet
If you suspect your child is intolerant to a particular food ? for example, if they react badly after eating the same thing, or they seem to crave a particular food ? eliminate it from their diet and monitor the reaction. If after two weeks you see no difference in behaviour/symptoms, reintroduce it and see if there?s a reaction. If not, then try a different suspected food group until you find what?s bothering them (or find that food?s not in fact the problem).
The most common allergens are wheat, gluten (the protein found in wheat and also barley, rye and to a lesser extent oats), dairy foods, eggs, citrus fruits, tea, coffee, chocolate and soya.
You can also test for more than 113 foods simultaneously with an allergy test which you can conduct at home from Yorktest. This is a quick and effective way of establishing what is affecting your child using a finger-prick sample of blood.
Patrick Holford, one of the UK’s leading nutrition experts, shares the eight secrets that everyone should know to keep really healthy, at his next Weekend Workshop in London on 17th/18th May. And it?s not just the same old advice about eating your greens, cutting down on booze and getting some exercise there?s a lot more to it than that, and you?ll be amazed at what you find out.
His advice will lead to you achieving fantastic health, both for you and your family – so whether you want to lose weight, improve your energy and concentration or just simply feel better and find out more about how to be healthy then make a date in your diary for this workshop. Visit www.patrickholford.com/workshop for more information.