ADHD
Nutrition: Healthy Food for a Healthy Brain and Body
All of us—adults and children
alike—can benefit from a healthy diet. For people with attention
difficulties, a healthy diet can be especially helpful in supporting
brain development and calming one’s behavior. As a natural
remedy, ADHD nutrition is definitely worthy of research to discover
the best diet for children and adults with ADD/ADHD.
While ADHD nutrition is not a cure
for attention difficulties, a proper ADD/ADHD diet can greatly improve
a person’s body chemistry, blood sugar levels, and healing
abilities. Before you embark on improving ADHD nutrition, especially
in children, it’s important to note that you don’t want
to follow such a strict diet that it causes more stress than good.
On the contrary, you want to teach your child about how to choose
nutritious foods. When a parent becomes too obsessive about enforcing
ADHD nutrition, the child could become resentful and defiant. Most
parents find ADHD nutrition is much more successful when they focus
on one goal at a time, such as decreasing refined sugar in the diet
or increasing high-quality protein.
Once you’ve decided to move
toward a diet focused on ADHD nutrition, here are some items you
will want to include in your family’s regular diet:
Essential fatty acids:
Not only are EFA’s like Omega-3 fatty acids great for the
cardiovascular system, they are also necessary for brain function.
Examples of foods rich in Omega-3 fatty acids include fatty fish
(salmon), nuts (walnuts and almonds), and flaxseeds.
Whole grains, leafy green
vegetables, beans, and peas: These foods are full of B-vitamins,
magnesium, antioxidants, and more ADHD nutrition sources necessary
for a healthy body, brain, and nervous system.
High protein foods:
Instead of relying solely on sugar for energy, make sure your child
has a steady supply of high-quality protein. Turkey, eggs, nuts,
cheese, and yogurt are all good proteins sources for ADHD nutrition.
Milk, green vegetables,
and other sources of calcium: Calcium is needed by your
body to regulate many different functions, including nerve impulses.
As you attempt to improve
ADHD nutrition with high-quality food choices, it may also be helpful
to avoid certain foods. Most candy, potato chips, and other “junk"
food are full of empty calories, sugar, and salt which will do little
to nourish the body and brain. Limit the consumption of empty calories
and try to replace them with healthy snack food choices like fruits,
nuts, vegetables, yogurt, cheese, etc. Healthy snacks are also beneficial
to ADHD nutrition because they stabilize blood sugar levels while
also providing key nutrients.
