ADHD ADD Diet for Children and Adults
As a parent with a hyperactive child you will be well aware of the role diet plays in your child’s behavior. There are many diets available. Some are rigid and highly detailed and others less so. Whichever diet you follow there are two rules both of which make for good old fashioned common sense.
1. Eat sensibly and well and
2. Drink plenty of water.
But if you want specifics about diet, here are several points recommended by the professionals. They all aim to help you and your ADD/ADHD child.
The main point of a diet for an over-active person is to help reduce their restlessness and to help their brain as much as possible. The one no-no in all of this is to avoid junk food. Diet is important and feeding your child rubbish will not help their condition at all and may even make it worse.
Sugar is bad for your hyperactive child. Cut it out altogether if possible but at least by 80-90%. Remember sugar is found in what are seemingly healthy foods such as fruit juice.
Diary products are bad for your child and cow’s milk is a particular no-no.
Fried foods are not recommended for anyone who wants to lose weight and they are not recommended for ADD/ADHD sufferers.
Again with sugar being restricted, chocolate as tempting as it is, should be removed from the diet. Perhaps as a special treat but rarely.
Read the label on all packaged food and avoid those with coloring. Reds and yellows in particular are not good but all additives should be carefully screened and tested. Your child’s condition can be exacerbated by food additives.
Sometimes a substitute may be thought to work well. NutraSweet instead of the banned sugar could sound promising. In fact it is totally the wrong thing to give your hyperactive child. Never do so.
Processed food, particularly meat, should be avoided wherever possible. And while you would think that fresh fish would be ideal, it too, unfortunately, is not recommended. The reason being that due to pollution, fish today has unacceptable levels of mercury and any traces of this are bad for your brain. It’s bad for anyone and doubly so for a sufferer of ADD or ADHD.
But what can we feed our child? It’s all well and good telling us what we can’t eat. Fair enough and so here are some foods which are recommended.
Immediately though you will have to forget what may be traditional food for so many families. For example breakfast cereals and milk are both bad for the hyperactive child. Eggs and toast are recommended.
Fruit and vegetables are ideal. Eating as many as you can and drinking lots of water make for a healthy body and will certainly help the brain of an ADD/ADHD sufferer.
A high protein diet is what your child needs. Lots of beans and nuts and eggs will help and by avoiding the bad things and concentrating on what is good, you will greatly help the behavior of your child.
