David, Eileen, and Josie,
From
Food for Thought: A New Look at Food & Behavior by Saul and JoAnne Miller
"
Chapter 17, Educational Problems in Children :
Junk food is the food of the learning-problem generation.
Psychologists, educators and parents are becoming increasingly aware of children with educational problems. According to some recent estimates, educational problems affect up to one-third of all school children in the United States.
The child with an educational problem is one who is not performing up to a certain acceptable standard in the classroom. It may be that the child has a specific learning disorder and has trouble acquiring reading, speech or mathematical skills. It may be that the child has a disciplinary problem and is upsetting teacher, classmates or procedure. It may also be that the child has an emotional or physical problem which is decreasing its learning ability and/or making it difficult to behave in an acceptable manner. Any or all of these problems may constitute an educational problem.
The best indication that a psychologist, teacher or parent has about a child's learning ability or emotional well-being is in that child's performance. The difficulty that a child may have performing in an intelligent and well-organized manner in the classroom is rarely specific to that situation. Basically, classroom behavior can be seen as involving five categories of complex and integrative behaviors. A performance or educational problem can manifest itself in any or all ofthe five. In the classroom:
- A child must be able to perceive the stimuli presented, be able to determine "what's demanded," and then have the ability to concentrate its attention on a specific problem or stimulus.
- It must be able to organize incoming information in relation to past knowledge and then code it for future retrieval (memory).
- A child must have some ability to communicate with others (language, verbal and written).
- It must be motivated to perform (without performance there can be no indication that learning has taken place).
- A child must display conduct appropriate to the situation. That is, he or she must "behave properly" as regards teacher and classmates.
None of these behaviors are restricted to the classroom. They are all demanded in the course of a child's everyday life. However, as the child must share the classroom with many children (and' they are all there to experience a specific process, namely education) certain standards of behavior are defined. Behavior often ignored or tolerated at home may be more apparent and disruptive in school.
There is little data available for comparison, but experienced teachers have noted disturbed behavior is more common in the classroom today than it was twenty years ago. Several years ago, I participated in a classroom observational study at the University' of Maryland. With two other observers, I sat at the back of a classroom for one day, recording the quality of the teacher's response patterns. We rated each response the teacher made to a specific child (not to the class as a whole) as to whether it was instructive or disciplinary. On that day, we noted that over 80 percent of the teacher's interactions with individual children were of a disciplinary nature.
There are many factors accounting for the increase in educational problems today. The list includes: more comprehensive screening techniques, social permissiveness, changing values, dissolution of the family, urban stress, drugs and, of course, diet.
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Most people can understand that an extreme, unnatural diet can nurture emotional and disciplinary problems. We are less inclined to think that a child's diet can affect its learning ability. The sophistication with which learning disorders are now tested and treated is not matched by an awareness of what the child with a learning disorder is eating, and how that may affect his or her problem. For example, a child may be tested, diagnosed and classified as "dyslexic" (having a reading disorder). This is then seen as the problem and remedial reading is prescribed as the solution.
One expert on children with learning and emotional problems has written:
When children who exhibit learning and/or behavioral disorders are examined by a number of specialists, the diagnosis is more closely related to the orientation of the specialist than it is to the essential problems of the child. A child may be ill because of a defect in his psychosocial environment or because of the biosocial environment or both may be in error. My experience leads me to conclude that in the vast majority of cases the error resides in the physicaJ environment and usuaJly in the nutrition and chemical airborne environment.
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*Food is often ignored as a basic factor in determining behavior. When an article in a leading weekly periodical begins, "Eleven-year-old Christopher Hansen swirled his grape lollipop in a glass of Pepsi. . .~' and goes on to discuss discipline problems and unstable family relations without even considering the relationship of food and behavior. . . the perspective is limited. (Newsweek) May 15, 1978)
Of course, remedial reading and speech therapy can be helpful, but what of the child's diet? Often (not always) a child continues on a diet of chocolate, candy, soft drinks, chips, hot dogs, milkshakes and processed, or "junk/' foods.
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There is now evidence that the overall performance of highschool students' American college entrance examinations has been decreasing for the past fourteen years. Of course there are many factors to account for this decline including social factors, TV, curriculum changes and different student populations. One change that is usually ignored in discussing this problem is the unnatural, junk-food diet of today's young people. The habitual eating of junk foods and candy can lead to a condition where eating any sweets, even fruits and natural sweeteners, will be upsetting and reduce performance.
I have observed with some children that just eating a few candies, a piece of chocolate, some honey or a banana is sufficient to markedly decrease their reading ability.
** After eating these foods, the children make more errors, their reading speed slows and their comprehension decreases.
There is now a growing recognition that the hyperactive child, the child with a learning disability, the "problem child," and even the child next door may be suffering from a serious biochemical disorder. Yet despite the extreme, unnatural eating habits of the children today, most experts advise a treatment for hyperactivity based on chemotherapy (usually stimulants, such as ritalin and dexadrine are prescribed) without any change in diet. Others recommend the elimination of a few specific foods such as sugar, foods with coloring and flavoring agents. I would suggest a marked reduction of all extreme and unnatural foods.
The same features of disintegration, alienation, insensitivity and extreme behavior that are a part of all contemporary problems can be found in the classroom. They can be reduced by living
*J
unk foods are those that appeal to the taste, the eye, or the mind, but are not wholesome or nutritious.
**Bananas and dates are sweet palm fruits which can have an unbalancing effect on behavior, especially if people have a blood-sugar problem.
sensibly and eating well. In some cases, remedial instruction may be appropriate, and in most cases a child's internal state directly affects its behavior.
Children express a wide range of activity levels. I have lived and worked with some very active children whose behavior I considered healthy and normal. They may wel1 have been "hyperactive" had not considerable attention been paid to ensure them a centered, natural diet.
In British Columbia, I was invited to address a group of teachers working with autistic and severely retarded children. After observing the children for several minutes, it was clear that each child was unique. Each had its own behavior pattern and many of the children were eating lots of refined carbohydrates and dairy food. There is no "magic diet" that can eliminate brain damage and severe retardation. Dietary change can, however, increase performance and help these children be more socialized. One could begin by eliminating all refined carbohydrates and chemical additives and decreasing dairy foods. Indeed, I have found that for almost al1 kinds of behavioral and emotional disturbances in children (and adults), a first step to establishing order and sanity is a change in diet.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS
Early life experiences, including early eating experiences, have a profound effect on al1living beings. In fact, the closer one gets to conception, the greater is the significance of each and every stimulus in our development. It is wel1 known that if a mother has an illness such as German measles during her early pregnancy, the child's development may be irreversibly affected. A similar effect may be the result of drugs (e.g., thalidomide) taken during pregnancy. In contrast, the same disease or drug will have a much less profound effect on a child or an adult. So it is with food.
The evolutionary time period required for a single-celled organism to evolve into a complex human being is said to be approximately three billion years. Yet, this process occurs within a female during the nine months of pregnancy. Accordingly, each day of pregnancy represents approximately ten million years of development. Hence a few days of a mother's chaotic eating, drinking and drug-taking can alter her internal environment and profoundly affect the fetus. It may even alter subsequent adult development and behavior.
Studies with animals and humans have shown that the quality of food in the earliest years has a greater impact than the same food eaten for an equal period later in life. It has been noted that if malnutrition extends through the most formative years of a child's mental development (from conception to age five), then retardation may be permanent. Severely malnourished children may experience an increase in I.Q. if their diets are enriched during this period.
BRAIN FOOD
Brain damage and minimal brain dysfunction have become common problems of this age. Estimates are as high as one American child in 18 being affected by the latter. The causes are many and varied. Most fundamental is the biochemical environment of the fetus and child. Nothing is more basic to that milieu, and more controllable, than diet, especially the mother's diet during pregnancy and when nursing, and the child's diet after weaning.
Psychologists have noted the significance of early emotional experience on the development of the adult personality. The dispositions and attitudes of social behavior acquired in our first few years are those we'll most likely express throughout our lives. Similarly, the food a child eats in its formative years profoundly affects its later development and behavior. Of course, the idea that diet has its greatest impact in these early years does not mean its effect in later years is unimportant and can be ignored. The same principles of a centered, natural diet apply to young and old alike."
Yes, it's a big jump from the expansion and contractiveness of foods to educational problems of children, and that is why I recommend reading the whole book to get the complete picture as presented by the authors.
As you may see, there is more to the children and everyone's learning process topic than just scientific perspectives.
Be well, be your best, and be blessed.
Thank you, very much.
Bruce Paine