If you have a child who has crankiness, mood issues, can’t sit still and learn, poor focus, and this child has an intense preference for junk food, it’s almost a sure bet that the junk food is having an effect on the child’s brain, and needs to be ruled out as a possible or partial cause of ADHD/ADD,” says Dorothy Mullen, a Princeton resident and counselor who specializes in substance abuse and addictions counseling.##M:[more]##
She speaks on “Food and Mood: Can Changes in the Diet Help Reduce the Symptoms of AD/HD and Coexisting Conditions in Children, Teens, and Adults?” on Wednesday, December 3, at Riverside Elementary School in Princeton, as part of CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) of Princeton-Mercer County, which meets regularly at the school, offering speakers, panels, and breakout groups.
When it comes to helping parents help their kids make changes “we don’t expect parents to get it right all at once,” says Mullen. “There are many ways you can reduce the harm of the foods your child is addicted to.” Here are some of Mullen’s tips:
Learn the difference between a dessert and a snack. A snack is exactly the same food you would eat at a meal, food that helps your grow, although it might be a smaller portion. A dessert is everything else — chips, soda, candy, cake. “The way this helps parents is they don’t have to vilify their child’s favorite foods. It reduces the bad effect of the food by allowing it but only after a proper meal. You maintain a standard without starting World War III.”
The most important thing you can do for your children is see that they get a good breakfast. “What you eat at the front of the day sets up your blood sugar and mood for the rest of the day. A good breakfast should include some protein, high-quality fat (olive oil and butter are OK), a low-starch vegetable (that means green, as in scrambled eggs with spinach), and whole grain.”
Think you can’t get your kid to eat green eggs and ham? Visit www.suppersfor.org for Mullen’s suggestions. (Hint: Mullen says, “There’s good research that shows that if you expose a child to a new food seven times, they can go from yuk to accepting it. So don’t give up, and also don’t be too invested in the child’s eating. If you’re standing over the kid, you’re going to sabotage the process. Also, when they’re hungry is a great time to try new stuff.”)
Do a simple test to see how gaga your kid is over junk food. “Especially for parents with ADD/ADHD children, I suggest they get a bag of groceries that includes everything from Coke, Red Bull, and chocolate chip cookies through prepared food through to the opposite end with fresh fruit and vegetables and whole foods. Ask the child to put them in order of what they would eat if mommy and daddy weren’t watching. If they have a child who intensely prefers to have the Coke and cookie end, and the parents would have to bargain to get them to eat at the other end, then absolutely the role of food has to be ruled out as a possible cause of brain differences or mood issues.” (Mullen is going to explain this tactic further at the December 3 workshop.)
Exercise control in the grocery store without the kid there, not in the house. Mullen says that if a child will only eat junk food, then the parent is addicted too. Only bring food into the house you’re willing to let your child eat.
Remember you’re their parent, not their friend. “We need to seize back the power of parenting and not worry about our popularity with them. We’re not doing them any favors by indulging them when it comes to addictive substances, i.e. junk food, that alter their brains.”
Get children involved in preparing, even growing, their own food. “The more you involve children in the growing, harvesting, preparing of food, and properly dining on the food, the more likely they are to be willing to eat healthy food,” says Mullen. Since 2001 Mullen has worked to create school gardens at Riverside Elementary School, designing, installing, and maintaining outdoor classrooms, providing teacher workshops and consulting with the Princeton Regional School District on incorporating wellness programs into the science curriculum.
Mullen herself learned the hard way about the devastating effects a poor diet can have on brain function and mental, not just physical, health. Twenty-five years ago, in her late 20s, after the birth of her first child, she says suffered from “insoluble health problems including a psychiatric hospitalization for a month for what turned out years later to an undiagnosed medical problem — suicidal depression,” says Mullen, who grew up in Wyckoff in Bergen County, the daughter of two high school teachers. Her doctors couldn’t diagnose her problem through lab tests, so they assumed that she was a psychiatric case. “That’s where the energy for all my subsequent work came from,” she says. She later learned that during that period, and for a period after her second child was born, she suffered from post-partum depression but it was never diagnosed.
After numerous kinds of medical treatment Mullen decided conventional medicine was not going to help her. She began to read about alternative medicine and over a period of two and half years weaned herself off depression drugs. She also discovered Robert Atkins’s, a cardiologist by training, specialized in issues related to blood sugar, and is now known for his famous Atkins diet designed to stabilize blood sugar. Mullen went into Manhattan to be treated by Atkins, who put her on a strict diet, had her keep a food journal, and started her on nutritional supplements. “Within a couple of weeks I was out of the depression,” she says.
Today, she says, “I personally have to eat to normalize my mood and my blood sugar. If I ate the standard American diet, I probably would have committed suicide by now.”
— Jamie Saxon
Attention Deficit Disorder Lecture and Discussion, Riverside School, 58 Riverside Drive, Princeton. Wednesday, December 3, 7 p.m. “Food and Mood: Can Changes in the Diet Help Reduce the Symptoms of AD/HD and Coexisting Conditions in Children, Teens, and Adults?” presented by Dorothy Mullen. Sponsored by CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) of Princeton Mercer County. www.chadd.net. For more information on Mullen visit www.dorothymullen.org or www.suppersfor.org. 609-683-8787.
