Henry captured my heart from the moment he walked through the door. He had a warm, sweet smile, a gentle disposition and an ease about him. He told me he wanted to feel better though he didn't know what to do. Henry explained that he usually has no appetite, has trouble sleeping, gets angry easily, and is struggling in school. Henry is sixteen years old and didn’t realize that he was drinking one pound of sugar every day. He wasn’t aware of the affects what he was eating and drinking had on his body or that it could easily lead to future problems like Type 2 diabetes. I sensed that Henry felt I was overreacting to his situation. Sadly, Henry is one of many teens who believes what he hears in advertising and that health warnings are for the "other guy".
Henry didn’t know that:
- Emergency rooms are seeing a rise in teenagers with heart palpitations and seizures. This increase is being related to the popularity and increased use of energy drinks.
- Pediatricians are finding correlations between lack of sleep and water intake and episodes of depression and hyperactivity.
- Children who skip breakfast are less able to distinguish among similar images, show increased errors, and have slower memory recall.
- Children experiencing hunger and thirst are more likely to be hyperactive, absent and tardy, in addition to having behavioral and attention problems.
- Children and teens require 10 hours of sleep a day. Besides cell repair and growth, deep sleep coincides with the release of growth hormone in children and young adults.
When I first meet with a student, I am very interested in their diet, sleep habits, and water intake. The quickest and easiest way I have found to help students like Henry is to add three things to their life: more sleep, more water, and more exercise. The next step is to remove a few items from their diet and reduce the amount of time they spend in front of a flat screen (tv, computer, or hand held).
The picture below is the dietary guideline I use:
Nourishment Pyramid – The body side
Eating nutritional food is the first step. The body then needs to properly digest the food and absorb the nutrients. As well as learning challenges, my students usually also experience digestive problems, diarrhea, constipation, food allergies, or are picky eaters. I interpret these ailments as as indication of an imbalance to the health and integrity of the flora in their gut (intestines). The gut flora can be damaged by antibiotics, steroids, other drugs, a diet high in processed and sugary carbohydrates and low in fresh fruit and vegetables, and other stress factors. If this is the case, I suggest a particular diet with supplements to help heal their gut. The results have been amazing.
Henry agreed that his diet was high in sugar and that it might be causing some of his difficulties. He just wasn’t ready to make the changes I recommended. He joked, as teenagers do, believing that he would be the exception and live free of any complications. I hope he is right or he changes his mind before his challenges become more serious.
Next blog we'll focus on the need for water and fat.
