Whether or not you are aware of the health complications, kids’ mental health can be caused by what your children are eating on a daily basis. Soda, chips, frozen meals, fast food, and vending machines packed with endless instant satisfaction, who can resist? Certainly not our kids! Not surprisingly, this is completely acceptable among parents and society. Many parents, people in general, are unaware of the actual ingredients that go into these “food” products and the effects they are having on our children’s brains. No doubt, they are convenient, fast, easy, and will stop the fussiest of kids within two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
However, is it worth the pending deterioration of your kids’ mental health? The cognitive risks plaguing young people? To simply not be prepared ahead of time with their food choices in your busy life?
It’s not an easy choice to make with the normalcy of our busy lives, but then again, what is a (busy) life if our kids can’t function mentally living it?
The American youth are being attacked by an unknown enemy in which they are willing and even eagerly inviting into their lives every single day. Our system of convenience has overthrown the value of food and its impact and importance on the human body, particularly the brain. More importantly, your young kids and the possible risks of having mental illness develop during adolescence. A critical time when their bodies are developing and changing the most. Dealing with hormonal changes is enough, coupling that with kids’ mental health on top of hormones, may be considered pure chaos.
Have you ever wondered about the cause on why so many kids are going over the edge nowadays?
Have you ever noticed a connection between your mood just before, during, or after you eat a particular meal?
Notice how an herbal cup of tea makes you feel after a hectic day?
There are chemicals your kids are ingesting that are proven to radically change their brain function and thus, their behavior.
NOT ONE single study has been done to determine the effects of the cocktail of chemicals circulating in every one of our bodies.
Since 1975, there have been increasing amounts of petrochemicals dumped into our food supply, the soil, air, and water.
It’s not your grandparents that are suffering the ill effects of poor health anymore, it’s the teens and 20-somethings that are growing up on these toxic and denatured industrial “convenience” foods.
Back in the early 1900’s, Dr. Weston A Price traveled the world seeking out supreme races that were healthy, eating their traditional whole foods, and had ZERO records of any history of kids mental illness. These traditional cultures understood the link between food consumption and the state of the human mind and body.
Missing Key Nutrients
According to the Mayo Clinic, vitamin B-12 and other B vitamins (B Complex) play a role in producing brain chemicals that affect mood and other brain functions. In one study, more than a quarter of severely depressed older women were deficient in B-12.
Vitamin B3 (niacin) and vitamin B6 both support tryptophan production. Consequently, they help reduce anxiety and depression. Would your kids benefit from a reduction of anxiety and depression in our bullied-riddled schools?
Absolutely!
The lack of B complex nutrients in food isn’t the only culprit. The addictiveness of sugar can follow young kids and adolescents as they develop. This leads to an adverse effect on teen nutrition levels.
Sugar is one of the biggest threats to kids’ mental illness health or lack thereof. Sugar and sugar additives have been linked to depression, addictive behavior, anxiety, memory loss, and cognitive ability.
A recently published in The Lancet Psychiatry, it’s of great interest when we see a data signal that suggests that we can treat depression by focusing on nutrition and what we eat.”
Ramsey and colleagues’ paper cites a number of studies attesting to the vital role of certain nutrients in brain health, including omega-3s, Vitamin D, B vitamins, zinc, iron, and magnesium. The modern diet, while dense in calories, tends to be lacking in these important nutrients, which may be contributing to the rise in {kids} mental health conditions.
Pharmaceutical Ineffectiveness
Unfortunately, we’re pointing to the wrong treatment options to win the battle of mental illness for our kids. Pharmaceutical interventions or treatments like talk therapy, or some combination of the two aren’t as effective when it comes to balancing out healthy levels of normal brain chemistry without side-effects.
CCHR International’s investigation into school violence reveals that at least 36 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. Their actions while on these drugs resulted in 172 wounded and 80 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs or undergone other behavioral therapy.)[2]
At least 27 international drug regulatory agency warnings have been issued on psychiatric drugs being linked to mania, violence, hostility, aggression, and psychosis and homicidal ideation (thoughts or fantasies of homicide that can be planned).
Increasing laws on gun restrictions is all well and good if you support that, but if society continues to ignore the potential root causes of mental illness among kids and teens, they’ll still get their hands on the gun. The gun left alone does not cause violence – the brain operating the gun, young or old is either thinking rationally or it’s not.
Naturally (Un)Happy
Our kids are not getting the healthy daily dose of “happy hormones”, namely, serotonin.
The depletion of serotonin levels in the brain leads to psychiatrists prescribing SSRIs, which attempt to add serotonin back into the body. The introduction of serotonin through SSRIs has led to a reported increase of side effects such as suicide, depression and violent behavior.
A 2015 Swedish study stated, “On stratifying the individuals by age, a significant association was seen between the use of SSRIs and convictions for violent crimes among those aged 15-24 years.”
If our standard American food supply was not compromising the functionality of the brains of our youth, kids would not be on SSRIs. Perhaps the decision-making of the kids would not drive them to tragic acts of violence.
It’s time to take a hard and serious look at the food being fed to our pregnant mothers, children, and teens that contains neurotoxins as well.
Nutrition As An Option
The physical and mental health of our kids needs to come first by supporting healthy, safe, organic food for all Americans; in and out of schools. When junk foods were eliminated completely in high schools, the dropout rate in a school of 5,000 went from 500 to 14.
80 percent of probationers who came to their assigned officer after they started using a food-based treatment were able to go on to live full, productive lives. A 12-year study on these individuals found that not a single one who stayed with the program had been back in trouble.
There’s evidence that teens and criminals were able to make better decisions when they eliminated the damaging neurotoxins from their developing brains. They ate food that was more nutritious, giving their brains the vitamins and minerals needed to make better decisions.
Convenience foods aren’t the answer to satisfy a quick craving, to make it to soccer practice on time, or to quiet a screaming child. Not unless you are prepared to continue to deal and live with the devastating effects they have on your kids’ mental health.
“Food should be the first line of defense because it’s a foundational treatment,” said Ramsey. “We really need to move away from thinking of things like diet and exercise as ‘complementary’ or ‘alternative.’ That’s really bad thinking that’s gotten psychiatry into trouble.”
The complexities of the cause of kids’ mental health illnesses can span from psychological to physical and emotional reasons. However, improving kids’ eating habits on a daily basis with brain-enhancing-healthy nutrients would only support their mental health.
“A well-nourished brain is going to be more resilient,” says Ramsey. “Being a modern human is stressful. There are a lot of demands for our attention and we’re exposed to a lot more trauma … Through diet, over time you make the brain more resilient.”
Photo Credits: AndiL. | pixabay | NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Resource:https://www.alternet.org/food/could-toxic-food-and-medications-be-contributing-school-shootings
