A Healthy Tomorrow

Building Wellness Into The Next Generation

nutrition

Change 1 Thing! May Challenge

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“Change One Thing” is a 12 step process over one year to help you achieve your health goals.  You simply commit to make one change in your lifestyle every month, so that by the end of the year, you will have completely transformed to a healthy lifestyle. Are you willing to take the challenge?

Your May Challenge (should you choose to accept it): 

“I Will Start to Detoxify My System Daily” 

Healthy eating concept. Word ‘detox’ from green tea with colorful smoothies and fruits. Top view

We are surrounded by a toxic environment.  Toxins abound in our foods, water, and air in the form of pesticides, heavy metals, air pollutants, harsh cleaning products, etc.  We can’t avoid many of these toxins, and therefore, we need to be proactive in protecting our bodies against the harmful effects of these agents.  Therefore, the following is a plan for you to detoxify your system daily. 

Stop toxin intake! The first thing we must do to detoxify is to stop taking toxins into our systems.  The biggest offenders are cigarette smoke, alcohol and drugs.  But there are other chemicals that we use regularly that are also toxic to our systems.  Sugar, for example, causes inflammation in our bodies.  Excessive caffeine stresses our bodies through elevated blood pressure and heart rate.  Artificial flavors and colors in many snack foods are also inflammatory, and linked to increased frequency of mental health problems, such as anxiety and reduced memory.  So the first step to detoxification is to stop taking in toxins! 

Eat detoxifying foods: Dr. Alan Logan, author of The Brain Diet has rightly said “Your ability to detoxify is only as good as the quality of your diet.”  You need to fill your diet with foods that support the liver and gastrointestinal tracts, which are our body’s main detoxification organs.  For example: 

  • Fiber binds toxic chemicals and removes them from the body through the GI tract.  It also promotes growth of “good bacteria” in the gut.  Therefore, eat fiber rich foods, such as brown rice, barley, beans, fruits and vegetables. 
  • The cruciferous vegetables, which include cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower, support the liver’s detoxification process.  
  • Organic foods are foods grown or raised without use of hormones, pesticides and other harmful chemicals.  I realize these foods are more expensive, but they are worth it in the long-run.  The best foods to eat organically include beef, and fruits and vegetables with thin or edible skins, such as apples, pears, and berries. 

Obtain a healthy weight: Guess where toxins get stored in the body? In fat cells.  In fact, one important reason to avoid eating animal fat is because many toxins that the animal has ingested are stored in the fat.  By losing excess weight, you give your body less opportunity to hang onto toxic chemicals. 

So focus this month on incorporating these strategies to reduce the toxic load in your body. Are you up to the challenge? 

      Don’t forget to continue your: 

January habit of drinking at least 8 glasses of water per day (1/2 your weight in ounces of water per day) 

February habit of eating 7 to 9 servings of fruit and vegetables per day 

March habit of replacing refined white foods with whole grains 

April habit of exercising for at least 30 minutes 3 times per week 

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Creative Ways to Get Your Kids to Appreciate Vegetables

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If American kids had disposable incomes, they’d probably buy groceries like every day was Halloween – reams of Twizzlers, bushels of candy corn, and pounds of M&M’s, Reese’s, and Kit Kats. Unfortunately, the popular US diet (for adults as well as kids) has its consequences. Namely, 39.6 percent of adults are obese. (Obesity is defined as having a BMI over 30.)

Perhaps even more alarming, about one in three US adolescents or teens is overweight or obese. The health risks associated with excess weight include sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. That’s why it’s important to teach your kids to eat well: so that they grow up to be healthy, active adults. To do so, this might mean coming up with creative ways to inspire your children to appreciate and enjoy that most dreaded of meals: vegetables. Here are some helpful tips to get you started courtesy of guest blogger Jason Kenner.

Farmers Market

If your kids eat at the school cafeteria every day, their idea of “healthy food” might narrow down to neon-colored peas or pineapple chunks smushed into plastic ramekins. To teach them about the bounty and splendor of vegetables, take them to a farmers market. You may not know yourself that these markets offer interesting and unusual veggies. From Kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes, and green zebra tomatoes to Romanesco broccoli with its intricate coral-like patterns, the offerings can be as lush and varied as perennials in a plant nursery! Letting your kids pick vegetables out of the booths might prove to be enough of a hands-on experience to get them at least familiar with some of the healthiest foods in the world.

Raised Vegetable Beds

If there aren’t many farmers markets in your area, you might consider planting a raised vegetable bed. All you need is to hammer four planks (preferably cedar, since it’s rot-resistant) into a box. Dig out a square gulch, not too deep, in your backyard and fit the box over it and fill it with manure and fertilizer. Then, poke your finger through the surface to make rows where you plant your seedlings. Each vegetable has its own preference regarding sun, shade, moisture, and the month of the year to put it in the ground, but you’ll get all that down. And when you do, you’ll be feeding your kids heirloom tomatoes all summer long, right out of your garden.

Something else to bear in mind: if your backyard needs some additional modifications, as an added bonus, many kinds of home renovations can also increase the appraisal value of your home. Just make sure you keep those receipts!

Delicious Meals

Parents don’t have loads of free time, so serving your kids gorgeous vegetable medleys may seem preposterous. If so, then try looking up recipes meant to be simple weeknight fare. These might include quesadillas, spaghetti with lentils, tortilla or minestrone soup, or spaghetti squash burrito bowls. Making vegetables a staple of your kids’ diet from a young age may help them eat well for the rest of their lives, a routine that will prove invaluable to their health as they get older.

It’s also essential that your kids are drinking enough water every day. Not only will they avoid the extra sugar that comes with soda and juices, but drinking water removes toxins, prevents dehydration, and regulates body temperature.

Parenting Tricks

Meanwhile, if all these tips fail to lure your kids away from McDonald’s and Arby’s, try good old parenting trickery. Dress up your platter o’ asparagus or broccoli with a dab of butter (which is better for you than you might think) or a fun dip. Make them pick their vegetables out of your raised garden beds so that they can participate in the (suburban) farm-to-table process on their own. Finally, eat vegetables yourself, keep them out as appetizers during meals, and don’t pressure your kids to swallow every wedge of cauliflower on their plates. The less you stress about the importance of eating vegetables, the less they’ll latch onto it as a point of contention, until it’s simply part of your household’s regular diet.

Dr. Teresa Fuller is a pediatrician with an expertise in integrative holistic medicine. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Feeding Your Child’s Brain (And Yours!) for Optimal Concentration, Creativity and Cognition

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This month, we’re focusing on ways to optimize your child’s brain for maximum performance.  The first step?

Feed It!

 

“In order to ensure that your child’s brain is able to function well…you must first ensure that it is being properly nourished.…Poor diet is without a doubt one of the major reasons we’re seeing such an incredible spike in the number of kids diagnosed with and medicated for mental and emotional disorders.  Even drugs can’t help our kids when they are quite literally being starved of their mental and emotional health.” Scott Shannon from Please Don’t Label My Child

 

Now that our kids are back in school, they’ll need all the brain power they can get.  Does it surprise you to know that our brain function is so vitally connected to what we eat?  We can either eat “brain food” or we can eat “brain drain food.”  More and more studies are showing just how powerful food is in the function and growth of the brain.  On the other hand, the wrong foods are absolutely detrimental to brain function.

Recently, I went to visit my son at his elementary school during a morning enrichment session.  In a room full of kids working at computers, the vast majority of them were eating Skittles, which were provided to them by the school store.  I was flabbergasted that these bright students were being supplied with a load of candy at the start of their school day!

Candy is not brain food; in fact, it’s the very opposite, a brain drain.  We as parents need to equip our children with the tools they need for better concentration, creativity and cognition.

So here are four great nutritional brain boosters:

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables! 

Our children need at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables every day.  Just yesterday I spoke to a woman who told me that her 13 year old son does not eat any fruits or vegetables.  Being the parent of a picky eater myself, who only likes corn (not even sweet potatoes, can you imagine?!), I’ve had to be very creative about getting the fruits and veggies in, such as smoothies and milkshakes doctored with hidden fruits and vegetables.

How do fruits and vegetables boost brain power?

  • The brain consumes a whopping 20% of the body’s total energy expenditure. As a great source of complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables provide a supply of healthy carbs for the brain to work optimally.
  • Fruits and vegetables release an abundant supply of antioxidants which are powerful chemicals that your body uses to fight oxidative stress, thus protecting the brain.
  • Fruits and vegetables are also good sources of fiber.  Perhaps you thought fiber was only important for gut health?  Yet fiber is a detoxifying agent for the body.  Therefore, it protects the brain by removing toxic chemicals.
  • Fruits and vegetables have a high water content, providing proper hydration for the brain to function optimally.

 

Supply your brain with a healthy dose of essential fatty acids: 

Two are especially important:  DHA and EPA.  DHA helps support nerve cells while EPA is responsible for signaling and communication inside and between nerve cells.  EPA may also be key in maintaining BDNF levels (a brain growth chemical).

Good sources of essential fatty acids are:

  • fatty fish, such as salmon and tuna
  • nuts (such as walnuts and almonds) and
  • seeds (e.g. pumpkin seeds)

In his book, The Brain Diet, Dr. Alan Logan states “dietary and supplemental omega-3 fatty acids may be the most significant brain insurance policy you can purchase.”

Maintain a Healthy Weight

Did you know that obesity is also bad for brain health? Studies show that excess weight is associated with brain shrinkage!  And obesity is associated with higher rates of ADHD, depression, and anxiety, all of which are increasing in incidence in our children.

Don’t Forget Breakfast and Healthy Snacks

Do your children, like mine, often want to run out of the house without having eaten a decent breakfast?  That sets them up for fatigue, irritability, and poor concentration.  Breakfast is a must to kick start the brain, and then the rest of the day should include regular snacking on nutritious foods, such as mentioned above. I applauded one of my son’s teachers when she instated a snack time rule that the snack had to be fruit or a granola bar.  She banned candy, cookies and chips from snack time.

You’ll find that strengthening your child’s diet in these ways will boost his/her brain performance and overall health!

 

References

Logan, A. The Brain Diet. (2006). Nashville, TN, Cumberland House Publishing.

Rhor, Monica. Brain foods help send kids to the head of the class, Published 01:20 p.m., Wednesday, August 24, 2011 in chron.com