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.
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