Food Additives and Hyperactivity
One of my kids has always fallen into the pretty-darn-active category, as in constantly moving, talking, and looking for entertainment. Then we started seeing some bizarre tantrums, and ALWAYS after she’d eaten artificial colors. I’ve asked random pediatricians and therapists about this. They all report that the research is inconclusive. They all more or less considered it hearsay, and somehow I felt like one of those freaky paranoid parents who thinks the tap water is full of carcinogens and that only raw food is healthy. I’m not really like that. We noticed an absolutely predictable. obviously causal, reaction. So why doesn’t the medical industry or the FDA do something about these chemical additives in kids’ food? Why isn’t there any reliable research on this?
Well, we know that these days, testing is sponsored by corporations to ‘prove’ that a product does something, to aid in the sale of their products. Independent and government agencies rarely test for bad effects from chemicals that are already in wide use. Why rock the boat for food corporations if you don’t have to? It doesn’t make money for anyone, so why would you want to do it? Thankfully, European agencies have done further research and determined that there is a definite link between food colorings and hyperactivity in children.
According to a recent CBS News article:
In 2007, a British study published in The Lancet concluded that consuming artificial coloring and preservatives in food can increase hyperactivity in kids. Scientists have been studying the link between food additives and hyperactivity in children for more than 30 years, with mixed results. But the results of the 2007 study compelled the European Food Standards Agency to urge companies to voluntarily remove artificial coloring from food products. The FDA, however, hasn’t changed its opinion on the use of FDA-approved artificial food colors
Thanks, FDA!
The good new is you don’t have to eat this junk. Though, according to this summary of an industry market analysis, the use of additives is only predicted to increase over the next few years:
Increased food production and gains in value-added sweeteners, nutraceuticals and natural additives will drive US food additive demand up 4.8 percent annually through 2008. Flavors and flavor enhancers will remain the largest segment, while alternative sweeteners grow the fastest. Grain mill products, pet food and snack food show best market prospects. This study analyzes the $4 billion US food additive industry. It presents historical demand data for 1993, 1998 and 2003 plus forecasts to 2008 and 2013 by product (e.g., flavors and flavor enhancers, texturizers and fat replacers, emulsifiers, preservatives, nutraceuticals, colorants, enzymes, alternative sweeteners, acidulants, phosphates). [EEEWWWW!!!]
Here’s another quote from MayoClinic.com, where they hedged their bets and refused to come down on the side of agreeing that chemical additives in food are BAD:
The issue of whether food additives affect children’s behavior has long been controversial. Some research suggests that artificial colorings and preservatives may be associated with hyperactivity in children. But an association is not the same as a proven “cause-effect” relationship. There is no proof that food additives cause attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). ADHD is most likely due to a combination of changes in the structure of the brain and certain environmental factors.
However, a recent study funded by the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency is sure to throw more fuel on the heated debate about food additives and hyperactivity. Researchers tested 300 children between the ages of 3 and 9 years old. Results published in September 2007 showed varying degrees of hyperactive behavior in the children after they consumed fruit drinks containing a mixture of food colorings and preservatives. The additives assessed in the study included sodium benzoate, sunset yellow, carmoisine, ponceau 4R, tartrazine, quinoline yellow and allura red. The study was unable to determine which of the additives may have affected behavior because all of the children were given a mix.
That’s just weak.
A last quote from a 2008 paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics:
“Thus, the overall findings of the study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.”
If your child seems cranky, irritable, bossy, or just plain unhappy after eating any of the myriad foods that contain colorings, preservatives like sodium benzoate, or other additives, consider changing your shopping habits. Your child will love you more. It’s worth it!
You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up
Okay, so first off, APOLOGIES for a THIRD shameless post in a row about Palin… I know, I’m obsessing as bad as the rest of the media. But today’s news threw me into a gleeful tizzy of laughter. Because I’d been balking at the horrible bloggers who were writing about how Palin’s 4-month old son, Trig, actually belonged to Palin’s 17-year old daughter, and that Palin (senior) was covering for her daughter’s mistake.
Today’s news changed all that. Those bad bloggers were rebuked with a big smackdown of fact. Let’s take a true-or-false quiz, shall we? Yay! Quiz!
- Bristol Palin, aged 17, is not Trig’s mother… TRUE!
- Bristol Palin CANNOT be Trig’s mother because she’s already four months pregnant… TRUE!
- Bristol Palin prayed for at least six months while she was having unprotected sex that God would remind her mom to put just a few condoms in the bathroom drawer… TRUE! (well, at least I bet it’s true, the poor thing!)
- Bristol’s own baby will be named Geometry, ‘Geo’ for short… OK, I MADE THAT UP! Get it? Like Trig-onometry? Although I betcha it’s Trig like trigger, like as in gun or rifle or AK-47…
- Sarah Palin and all the ultraconservatives will welcome the blessed miracle into the family and no one will say word one about how Bristol really should’ve taken her VERY EFFECTIVE ABSTINENCE-ONLY sex education to heart, er, to bed, er, to the car, or wherever the ungodly act occured. TRUE!
- Geometry Palin will have an uncle who’s THE SAME AGE for four-months of the year. I realize this is fairly common for ultraconservatives. Hmmm, something to think about there, like maybe Sarah and her daughter should’ve shared a pack! TRUE!
If you guessed TRUE for all of the above, I’ll email you a membership to Planned Parenthood as a prize! Okay, no I won’t but it does prove that you’re just as cynical (and liberal, yay!) as me. Oh yeah, and think about joining anyway. It’ll take some cash to recover from the Bush hell years.
I really do wish the best for Bristol and her mom/grandma. It’s so awful that it all had to happen under the glaring microscope of an election.
Goodbye Disney Channel
We’ve done it. We’ve divorced. My kids and the princesses are finished forever. Now that my daughters are eight and ten, I’m shutting off the cable. I can no longer see those wicked attempts to ‘princessify’ my daughters as innocent fun.
The Disney Channel rants endlessly about how badly one needs — REQUIRES — fame and an audience to achieve self-worth. At first I thought iCarly was kind of neat. A kid’s web show. Cool. I said to my girls, “Hey, would you guys like to do that? Have a web show?” I offered to help them produce it. They weren’t interested, but I did notice something else instead. It’s summer and they don’t want to do anything by themselves. They constantly say (yell), “Mom! Watch this!” for the most inane of reasons, to which I reply, “Not the audience…” as in, I am not the audience, as in, go the heck outside already and stop trying to get me to pay attention to you.
My girls are not prissy. I’m lucky if their outfits match. But still. One recent afternoon an Official Girl Scout segment aired showing a group of tweeny girls, big-haired and shellacked with makeup in all the colors of the rainbow. This featured group of girls were promoted for bringing their hip hop dance show to the less fortunate. Disney showcased them for their charitable natures. Or at least that’s what my girls argued. But then it was my turn. “Hmmm,” I said, “Are all those girls skinny?” “Are they wearing tons of makeup?” “Do they all look ‘white,’ even the black girls?” “Do any of them look like regular old kids, like your friends?” The overriding message from Disney is ‘Be pretty and famous or be worthless.’
It’s so pervasive. It’s so hard to escape. The message is not to be smart or innovative. So there you go. Bye bye stupid TV shows. I won’t miss you!
The Lowdown on Babies
My girlfriend just had a baby. She’s in that phase no one talks about where you feel like a cavewoman and have no illusions about the true reason we have boobs. (Hint: It’s not so Victoria can wear her secret pushup bras with stillettos!) Guys, if you’ve never had a baby, and I’m thinking you haven’t, imagine two straight weeks with the flu and no sleep. The way you’d be completely reduced to your base self, hollowed out like a cantaloupe after a Sunday brunch. The way you’d be covered in stubble and unwashed to the point where you can smell your own skin. Imagine the hunger, THE DRIVING NEED for a shower, solid sleep, and solid food. Now imagine there’s a little beastie clinging to you who demands your CONSTANT ATTENTION and you may begin to grasp what it feels like to be the mom of a two week old baby.
Then imagine your mother in law is coming to stay and you’ll be spending a frightening number of hours alone with her while tending the beastie!
Okay, so I exaggerate, but only a little. Those first few weeks are tough. But dammit, someone’s got to do it and do it well. Hang in there girlfriend! When everyone comes to coo and ah over the baby, to claim it as their own in any way they can, you’ll know something they don’t. Like two soldiers who made it through Da Nang back in Nam, that baby is yours forever. You’ve been through hell together and that’s a bond that sticks. (Don’t ever tell the baby they caused the hell — it’ll ruin the story!)
Free Range Kids, or Not…
Have you been following the free range debate? See www.freerangekids.com to catch up if you’ve missed out on the brouhaha.
The issue is whether or not to let your kids roam free and unsupervised, and if so, when and where and how much?
I’m sure there are many parents out there who feel confused and unsure about making declarative statements about this type of thing. Yes, helicopter-style parenting is bad. Doing your children’s homework for them is bad. There seems to be a general consensus that being overly cautious is bad, bad, bad. Unless your kid gets hurt, in which case, it’s obvious the parent did something wrong, probably neglectful.
I am truly perturbed by the fully overblown paranoia of schools, afterschool classes, and organizations like girl scouts over litigation prevention. I would never sue any institution, short of true malfeasance or gross neglect (NOT minor oversight, only GROSS neglect). But my contemporaries don’t agree with me. When I complain about the requirements for waivers, permission slips, health forms, etc., I am thought of as a difficult woman who needs to get over the obvious: bad things happen and we need to be prepared. The school (or fill in blank) can’t afford to get sued, and you don’t want to lose your house if you’re chaperoning, do you?
When I let me kids ride up and down the street on scooters without helmets, I am practically sending them to their deaths. Not to mention, it is now criminal to let your kids out of doors on wheeled vehicles without helmets. I am not so against the helmets. If your kids are going fast, far, or near fast-moving traffic, they’re mandatory in my house, too. But where did my right to use my judgment go?
Free-rangers argue that children need to be trusted and respected when they decide they are able to make decisions. Only their own parents know when they’re ready, not society at large. But there is such a societal force at work, driven by liability avoidance, that we really can’t argue about kids in isolation from this larger cultural movement which seeks to save us from ourselves. Seat belts, motorcycle helmets, vaccinations, 55mph speed limits, insurance required by law, workman’s comp… It just stretches out larger and larger. It’s so far beyond an argument about kids and how far away from the house they’re allowed to go. It’s about all of us losing our individual rights, and all of the people who demand to be protected.
Protected from what? Well, here in America, we want to be protected from everything. Everything that would cause us physical harm, including terrorists, drug users, cigarettes. Sharp edges, transfats, doctors who make mistakes. But don’t you dare come near anyone’s God-given right to make a buck. Or in the case of liability paranoia, anyone’s ability to keep a buck even if they do something wrong since they’ve got an army of lawyers on their side.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I’ve become a Libertarian. I want my rights back. Sadly, like taxes and military budgets, it seems to be a one-way land grab. I’ll keep working on letting my kids expand their territory, their right to explore the world on their own terms. Who’s working on mine?
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