BOOK REVIEW and (closed) GIVEAWAY: What’s Eating Your Child The Hidden Connections Between Food and Childhood Ailments by Nutrition Detective Kelly Dorfman, MS, LND

For the past twenty-nine years, I’ve been working directly with the families of thousands of children of all ages—from newborn babies to teenagers to kids home from college—fielding such questions about the reasons behind seemingly innocuous but otherwise “untreatable” childhood behaviors and conditions. These children are referred to me by their stymied physicians, frustrated specialists, concerned teachers, and other parents of children with whom I’ve worked, as well as by word of mouth that seems to have spread from the East Coast to the West. The average family in my practice has consulted between three and five medical experts before seeking my advice. They come to me because they have reached the end of the line with ineffective treatments for their child’s ailments and need a new, more successful way to approach his or her health problems. Indeed, the bodies of today’s children are under fire from environmental pollutants, additives in processed food, viruses messing up their developing neurological systems, and reactions to commonplace foods that can cause behavioural, psychological, and physical symptoms. This generation of children has the highest rate of food allergies, obesity, behavioural and emotional disorders, autoimmune disease, and learning issues ever recorded.

What have I been offering to these children and their concerned parents? Simple yet scientifically supported nutritional solutions that address, mitigate, and sometimes even erase both the symptoms and the causes of such stubborn health problems as food allergies, reflux, constipation, picky eating, attention issues, moodiness, behavioural difficulties, lack of energy, sleeplessness, and learning disabilities.

Of course, you will not be surprised to know that as a nutritionist with decades of experience, I believe in the power of good foods, vitamins, and minerals to create better health, growth, and development in children. But what may be unfamiliar to you is the degree to which nutrition plays a role in healing ordinary conditions and extraordinary situations—from earwax build up to reflux, from temper tantrums to chronic tummy aches, from odd social behaviour to pervasive anxiety. Yes, in many cases these situations stem from nutritional deficiencies or negative reactions to certain food groups.

Many years ago when I first began realizing the extent of the nutrition crisis in our country’s children, I was distraught. Why weren’t families getting proper nutrition advice? Was our health care system so backward that it couldn’t provide essential, scientifically supported nutrition information to parents? I took this frustration and decided to channel it for good: I not only began to delve into the most cutting-edge, published research on the effect of nutrition on behavioural, emotional, physical, and learning issues that commonly occur in children, but I co-founded a non-profit organization called Developmental Delay Resources to help parents and professionals find safe biological treatments for attention, behavioural, and cognitive issues. I was committed to taking on this challenge and reaching as many of these kids as possible. And even though many of the children I’ve treated have experienced remarkable recoveries, I know there are thousands more out there who need this same information. It’s for this reason that I have written this book.

WHAT’S EATING YOUR CHILD? is for those of you who have been looking for a way to navigate and sort through all the new information about nutrition—from omega-3 fatty acids to vitamin C. As parents, we are inundated with nutritional information, but no single place succinctly applies it to specific childhood health concerns.

What do I do exactly? I teach parents how to think about health and become the chief investigator in the unsolved mystery behind their child’s elusive condition. In most cases, these children not only experience a reversal of debilitating symptoms but discover the power they have over their own health—all by adding missing vitamins or minerals, avoiding foods that their bodies can’t tolerate, or taking a supplement that their brains need to function properly.