Nutrition and Learning

Fast Life – Fast Living – Fast Foods: Does it Really Affect the Way Children Function? 

We do live in a culture of families on the go: hurry to school, hurry to ball practice, hurry to dance, hurry to PTA, hurry to do homework, hurry – hurry – hurry.  We grab a quick burger, fries, and coke and off we go to make the next deadline.  Supermarket shelves are lined with boxes of quick snacks and easy to prepare meals.  All these foods are convenient and delicious.  But do we really know and understand the effects of what some of what we eat have on our bodies and our health. Did you know that: 

•   90% of the current American diet consist of processed foods.

 

•    Processed foods do not contain the nutrients needed for healthy living, and they also are full of additives, sweeteners, flavorings, coloring agents, preservatives, bleaching agents, and other chemicals.

 

•    A 2005 report issued by the USDA stated every person should consume between 5 to 13 servings of fresh vegetables and fruits daily.  But, what is the average American person of today feeding their body?  A recent national survey indicated that 40% of American people eat NO fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis!

 

•   A variety of recent studies indicate that the fresh vegetables and fruits that are consumed by the American people contain significantly lower amounts of minerals and vitamins as compared to those of 50 years ago due to mass production and spraying of harmful pesticides and chemical fertilizers that build up as toxins within the fatty tissues of the body.  The brain is one of those areas that toxins can accumulate.

 

Each person has approximately 100 trillion cells that are in a continuous cycle of cell dying and reproduction.  In fact, the cycle of old to new cell construction occurs at a rate of 300 million per minute.  During the process of cell replacement, a complicated chemical process occurs that can lead to the production of harmful components known as free radicals.  Free radicals begin reactions that result in cell damage if the body is lacking in molecules known as antioxidants.  Antioxidants have actually been found to reverse the damaging effects of free radicals. These imperative molecules are most commonly found in many different types of fresh fruits and vegetables.

 Think for a moment about an arcade game that emerged in the early 1980’s known as Pac-Man.

 

 In the game, Pac-Man roams the game board looking for little pac-dots to devour.  The more dots he “eats” the more points he gains.  Antioxidants are like Pac-Mans:  roaming around looking for deadly free radicals to overtake and destroy before they can accumulate into major cell damage – cell damage that can result in a vast number of illnesses and diseases. Therefore, as the process of cell replacement happens, new cells are formed by the nutrients available to them at the time; nutrients that are gathered from the foods that are eaten.

 So, just how important is food intake to the process of learning? 

 Many studies that have been conducted on this relationship show very distinctive links between the nutritional values in foods to a child’s cognitive development and behavior patterns. 

  Children who do not get adequate amounts of nutritional intake can be:

*less attentive

*display hyperactivity

*show signs of attention deficit disorder

*be easily distracted

*lack in motor development skills

*demonstrate disorganization

*display comprehension problems

*demonstrate emotional abnormalities.  

 Do the foods consumed affect the overall functioning of the human body and mind?  Are we what we eat?  What roles does nutrition have on the physical, neurological, and emotional health of this society?  Big questions!  In all actuality, is the proof in the pudding?

To discover how you can help your child get his or her recommended daily antioxidants and build healthier learning systems visit http://www.zoelifestyle.com/thetherapygroup.