Nutrition

Thoughts about nutrition and junk food

Over the years, our directress and staff have noticed that the lunch-bunch children tend to be calmer in the afternoon if they haven't had fizzy drinks or too much junk food in their lunchboxes, and we suspect there's a link between their excitable behaviour and the additives in their snacks. A number of other schools have noticed the connection as well - as in these news stories on the BBC News website: additive ban improves class behaviour, junk food ban "calms pupils", food additives cause "tantrums", number is up for pupils' tuck and school bans sweets to calm pupils, for example.

Food additives are usually blamed, though some schools have had equally dramatic improvements by simply allowing children to have water bottles on their desks so they can drink whenever they're thirsty (see school cans fizzy drinks, water aids thirst for knowledge and water improves school test results). It's hard to tell whether this is due to more water or fewer fizzy drinks. Unfortunately there's no scientific consensus as to whether or not additives affect children's behaviour. While most studies have claimed they don't, some (such as this recent one, and these here) have found links, at least for some children. The most recent study reported by the independent Food Commission suggests that the behaviour of around 25% of toddlers can be affected by additives in their food and drink. Their summary and press release will tell you more. The BBC also reports an experiment on a pair of twins; the one on the additive-free diet definitely did better than his brother in a couple of weeks.

However, since in our experience children do seem to behave oddly after eating 'junk food', we decided to put up this web page. We'd like to ask parents to consider cutting down on salty/sugary/processed snacks and offering natural fruit juice, milk or water instead of fizzy pop or so-called 'fruit drinks' such as Sunny Delight (which, even in its recently relaunched range, is only 15% fruit juice...) and, if you try it, we'd be interested to know whether you think this makes any difference to your child's behaviour. This report, a little out of date now, highlights the problem of foods aimed directly at the toddler market

There are links to more information below, if you want to look further into the subject, or any good search engine will give you a plethora of websites of varying degrees of reliability, usefulness and common sense. We've tried to cover the full range of opinion in our links so you can make up your own minds, but if you find a helpful website not included here please let us know so we can link to it.

Links:

The Food Standards Agency has information on their website about the different kinds of food additives and their uses; and this independent Food Additives Guide lists additives by their E-number and includes what they're used in and their known side-effects. It's a bilingual English/Turkish site, so the English is a little broken in some places, but it's the most complete list we've found on the Internet.

The British Nutritional Foundation gives healthy eating advice for toddlers
Smallfolk.com is a useful UK site and has sensible advice for parents who are worried about possible diet-caused behavioural problems
NS3UK Ltd provides a list of ten important dietary principles which we have included here
The BBC offers http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/nutrition/life_toddlers.shtml

Additives and food quality:The Food Commission is an independent food-quality watchdog (there seems to be a fault on their front page at the moment; try this if the first link doesn't work)
http://www.ifrn.bbsrc.ac.uk/ - The Institute of Food Research
http://www.cspinet.org/ - Centre for Science in the Public Interest - seems rather cranky and puritanical, but good info.Food sensitivities http://www.todaysparent.com/article.jsp?content=233 - good general article.There's an excellent discussion of alternative and unproven remedies on the CHADD website, the US national organisation for children and adults with ADD/ADHD. Though it obviously focuses on that disorder, the advice is good for people looking into any disputed medical claim.The Feingold Diet:You'll find a lot of websites about this if you search the web for information on additives and children's behaviour. In short, Dr Benjamin Feingold developed his diet in the 70s, suspecting that hyperactive children (with ADHD/ADD) were affected by additives and naturally-occurring chemicals in their food. It's a very strict diet, and has a great number of evangelical followers, particularly in the US, though very few scientific studies have shown any actual effect. There's a well-balanced overview here. This is the US National Network for Child Care's webpage on the Feingold exclusion diet. Their conclusion is that there's no clinical evidence that it works as it's claimed to, though there are other reasons that it may help improve children's behaviour.Quackwatch, an American website that specialises in debunking alternative medicine, tears into Feingold here; and there's a rebuttal of the Quackwatch article on the Feingold Association's website here. You'll have to make up your own minds....http://www.nutriwatch.org is a Quackwatch project that focuses on nutrition.Sites showing no proof of links between diet and behaviour http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/14/1739_50032 - No known link between sugar and hyperactivity.
http://hsc.virginia.edu/medicine/clinical/pediatrics/devbeh/adhdlin/feed.html
http://www.drkoop.com/news/focus/october/halloween.htmlSites showing some proof of links between diet and behaviour http://www.surgerydoor.co.uk/news/detail.asp?id=2155 - "Food additives 'may lead to behavioural problems'."
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~sdengate/references.html - list of scientific references.
http://www.naturalchild.com/research/food_additives.html - nice website, sensible middle-of-the-road advice.

News stories: http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,678393,00.htmlPubMed articles (pro and con): Foods and additives are common causes of the attention deficit hyperactive disorder in children [Ann Allergy 1994 May;72(5):462-8] Does oligoantigenic diet influence hyperactive/conduct-disordered children--a controlled trial - Apparently an oligoantigenic - i.e. elimination - diet helps some children - 24% of those studied - though not as many as medication does. [Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 1997 Jun;6(2):88-95] Food additives and hyperactive children: a critique of Conners - Argues that the studies done on the Feingold diet, as reported in Conners' book "Food Additives and Hyperactive Children" (1980) weren't adequate. [Br J Clin Psychol 1983 Feb;22 Pt 1:19-32] Nutrition and behavior: complex interdisciplinary research - "Discussions and findings from research presented include: refined carbohydrate consumption, maladaptive behavior, behavior disorders and learning; a history of the 'Feingold diet' and the basis for its controversy; an examination of recent critiques of research on artificial food dyes and hyperkinesis; indications for dietary intervention of hyperactive preschoolers; the role of iron in behavior disorders; effects of sub-clinical vitamin deficiencies on behavior; trace element analysis studies and violent behavior; and, suggested guidelines for further research into this complex and challenging field." [Nutr Health 1984;3(1-2):9-37] Diet and hyperkinesis--an update - The authors reckon that at most 2% of hyperactive children respond adversely to dye additives. [J Am Diet Assoc 1983 Aug;83(2):132-4] Can parents accurately perceive hyperactivity in their child? - The answer given is: only half the time if the child is hyperactive, and 89% of the time if he or she isn't. [Child Care Health Dev 2001 May;27(3):241-50] Hyperactivity: is candy causal? - 12 double-blind, placebo-controlled studies haven't provided any evidence that sugar leads to bad behavior in children, whether or not they have ADHD. Likewise for the studies testing candy and chocolate. [Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 1996 Jan;36(1-2):31-47] Effects of diets high in sucrose or aspartame on the behavior and cognitive performance of children - No effects seen. [N Engl J Med 1994 Feb 3;330(5):301-7] Reactions to dietary tartrazine - 24 hospitalised children aged from 18 months to 12 years, who'd all allegedly had behaviour problems due to tartrazine (E102) and benzoic acid (E210), were fed them in a double-blind test. No changes in behaviour were noticed by parents or staff. [Arch Dis Child 1987 Feb;62(2):119-22] The food additive-free diet in the treatment of behavior disorders: a review - An overview of studies of the Feingold diet, which mostly show no links between diet and behaviour. [J Dev Behav Pediatr 1986 Feb;7(1):35-42] Bibliography (suggested by Emma Monteith, our nutritional advisor)"For Nutrient-dense whole-food diet... relevant books include:

    • What should I feed my Baby by Suzannah Olivier
    • Optimum Nutrition for Babies and Young Children by Lucy Burney
    • Boost Your Child's Immune System by Lucy Burney
    • The Food Our Children Eat by Joanna Blythman
    • and, as a general reference, The Optimum Nutrition Bible by Patrick Holford (reader-friendly and informative)"

Additional information and links researched by Rachel Carthy