I don't have to tell you how important it is to eat healthy!
But...a good diet underpins both physical health as well as mental and emotional health. Your child's behaviour and learning challenges could have something to do with their diet.
Allow me to share with you some interesting research findings that support the above statement...
There's a study in Western Australia that started between 1989-91 and it's called the Western Australia Pregnancy Cohort Study or simply the Raine Study. It has been running over 27 years and 2868 children have been followed, providing researchers valuable information on a wide range of health issues.
What is of interest to me is the information on children with ADHD!
In 2009 a research article was published from the Raine Study and it announced that: It was the first study linking Western-style diet to ADHD.
So, what is the typical "Western-style diet" you might ask?
According to this study, the typical Western-style diet includes: takeaway foods, processed meats, confectionery, French fries, refined grains, high-fat dairy products and soft drinks.
A child raised on this diet is 2.2 times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.
According to another research article from the Raine Study, a healthy diet was not associated with ADHD.
The "healthy" pattern described in this study, included high intakes of whole grains, fruit, vegetables, legumes and fish.
ADHD children, quite often, don't like beeing told what to eat! "But why... EAT like that?" uses the teddy bear characters from the book series, to encourage children to eat healthy foods from a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day!