My 8 year old son has ADHD. He does not eat any candy during school time. but when we go shopping I normally will allow him 4 pieces of his large shopping bag of Holloween candy over the course of 3-4 hours. I he is already Hyperactive, Is this acceptable. I would also like to know, are there foods ADHD sufferers should obstain from?
Well each person is different. I can say yes and no that candy should be avoided for your child. You would have to use the process of ellimination diet to be able to determine which foods are triggering negative behaviours .. and believe me, there's quite a few. I've had my son on a diet and it's worked wonders. In fact today, his support worker wrote to me telling me how much he's changed. That was the greatest validation I could ever get. If you're interested, I can pm you the details but for now, he's a rule of thumb:
Avoid buying foods packaged in : a can; a bag; jarred. Fresh foods are best if at all possible and organic foods are even better (at least for now). Avoid anything that has chemicals added; refined sugars; salicylates (you'll have to figure this one out the long way). Also, the least items enlisted in the ingredients, the better. If you can't pronounce it then don't buy it.
My son was also sensitive to dairy. In fact, this was the number 1 culprit to his aggressive outbursts .. if you can believe that.
Hope this helps a bit.
Yes, every little bit helps. All those exclusions makes me wonder what he can actually eat. How old is your son and how does his diet play out at school or do you pack his lunches? May I also inquire, what does his daily or weekly diet consists of? If you prefer you could email me personally about the diet.
Thanks.
our son who has allergies I showed him the allergie test results of what can't be eaten at school.
At home we do fresh or frozen vegs he can have.
Avoiding preservatives/yeast is the hardest for us.
As far as I know my son does not have allergies, would you suggest I have him take an alergy test?For my son, anything that is considered junk food should be monitored closely. I found his behavior was better when I fed him foods with higher grain content and fruits such as strawberries and blueberries. I also bought milk with a higher fat content and froze fruit smoothies to eat for a snack. I satedgvg him a muti vitamins , Omega 3 Fatty Acid and . This is all in addition to his meds. It all seemd to help with mood swings and depression.
Thanks KWK94.
Special thanks to INaBOX for all your efforts and advice, most especially your time.
Anytime TricheWell allergies and food sensitivities is different. Food sensitivities directly affects mood and behaviour.
My son is 5 years old and I have to pack his lunches. His school has a lunch program of 'healthy' foods but even some of the healthy foods he can't have. Also, I don't know how the ingredients are made and processed. I don't allow him to participate in pizza day - which I feel horrible about. I remember as a child, I was the ONLY person who never got to order pizza. My mom was a single mom of 4 and she just couldn't afford it. I always felt left-out and HATED eating cheese sandwiches - day in and day out. Still do.
HIs diet has helped him a lot in school as well. I recently went through a bit of a nightmare with him and his teachers didn't know what to do. He was defiant; was climbing all over the tables; grabbing kids; was very loud; impulsive; aggressive.. it goes on, let me tell you. What happened was, I decided to introduce him to Indian food as he's able to eat a lot of their foods and enjoys it. The list I was following didn't mention anything about spices and assuming they were 100% natural, I didn't think anything of it. Well it turned out that 4 out of the 5 spices contains extremely high 'natural' salicylates. He does not do well with salicylates. Also, at the same time, I was giving him omega oils to help 'calm' the hyperactivities. Now this is suppose to be an effective method which I still believe it is. However, you also have to be careful on the name brand you buy. Apparently the one I had purchased had an ingredient called 'citric acid'. Now citric acid is found either naturally or chemically. He's able to handle it naturally (pineapples..) but chemically it's a different story. Citric acid usually has an MSG component or it converts into an MSG-like substance. MSG is an additive (I think) and my son does not do well with it at all. After I removed these items, he showed marked improvements - as you've just noticed from the note I wrote above.
There's a lot of foods my son can have so it'll take me a while to type it all out but here's what I usually pack him for his lunches:
Left-over dinner (it varies); flax-seed bread with multi-seed butter; carrot milk; pears (drained); bananas; yellow apples; water; rice crackers; carrots; celery.. I'm sure there's more. I have to give him lots because he attends kindercare and they provide a snack there too. Most often he can't have what they're offering so I have to bring extra.
I'll email you a link that talks about foods that are 'safe' to eat during your process of ellimination trial. Best of luck and let us know if you decide to do this.